Edge
by Dance Elle Dance
Summary: Lizard survives a fall from a cliff. If he survives Missy is another story. LizardMissy, AU
1. Survival of the Fittest

_**Disclaimer: **__I don't own The Hills Have Eyes._

_**Summary: Lizard survives a fall from a cliff. If he survives Missy is another story. LizardMissy, AU**_

_Okay…so, this is the last thing I'd expect to write. But I guess when inspiration hits, it hits. And this is definitely one of those cases. I just can't help it. Originally, I'd never have even thought about Lizard and Missy together, but __**Berry's Ambitions **__mentioned them as a pair and they haven't escaped my head. So, she's to credit for giving me the pairing, which gave me the idea…as well as giving me some ideas and stuff like that. And if you're reading this and haven't read her story "Abducted," you're totally missing out! Anyway, this story has a lot of AU elements to it, so I hope that y'all just go with it. This chapter isn't too long, but it's really just the beginning of this. I just wanted to leave the first chapter short and take it from there. Longer chapters to come! Please enjoy! (and sorry for the long AN)  
><em>

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><p><strong>Edge<br>Chapter One: Survival of the Fittest**

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><p>"Fuck!"<p>

The curse was the only thing heard in the small, compact space of one of the test village houses. The vulgarity escaped through Lizard's clenched teeth as his sister tended to his wounds. She looked pretty beat up herself, but that was nothing compared to what Lizard was experiencing. He snarled over at her, only to have her duck her head apologetically and continue dutifully stitching.

"Can't you do that any faster?" he growled.

Ruby started to blush in embarrassment, her fingers beginning to tremble, "No. Sorry, Lizard."

"Fuckin' stupid…" he muttered to himself, wincing slightly as the needle pierced his flesh over and over in a continuous, zigzag pattern. "Fuckin' _Hades_."

"We were lucky," she timidly started.

Lizard rolled his eyes, "Don't mean nothing. Next time I see him, he's dead."

"I'm sure he didn't mean - "

"Don't say he _didn't mean it_. He knew damn well what he was doing when he cheated us."

The story was a long one, one that Lizard himself had trouble remembering with perfect clarity. He had hit his head pretty hard on the rocks, after all. But he knew all he needed to. Jeb had lured a young motorcycling couple down the usual path. The chase was fun, that was always what Lizard enjoyed best about his lifestyle, but he knew there was something more to it.

He hadn't realized anything was amiss until he heard Hades' telltale call, a whoop of elation that was as chilling to him as it was to any wary travelers that crossed his path. He had bounded out from behind a rock on the cliff face where Lizard had corralled the two of them and immediately slit the man's throat while the woman started to scream. Surprisingly, one of the members of his family, Gretel, bounded out and killed her as well. Surprising in the fact that Hades had allowed it. He always loved the thrill of a new pet.

That wasn't the only agenda on their mind, apparently. Chameleon had decided to make himself known at that moment, shoving Ruby in his direction. She had tumbled towards him, looking so small and fragile. He didn't even think of what she had been doing here. She had always had a bad habit of following him around, just to make sure nothing became of him. Little brat.

Ruby had smacked into his chest with all the force of a boulder, pushing him off of the edge of the cliff, his feet skidding down the rock as Ruby muted a scream against his ratty clothing. He feet finally parted from the loose rocks and they fell backward, his sister clinging to him tightly, as if willing them back on top of the cliff.

He made sure he was the one that took the brunt of the fall, landing squarely on his back with Ruby piled on top of him. He had heard the cackling laughs of Hades and Chameleon while registering that Ruby was crying softly.

After that, he had lost consciousness.

Ruby's hands stopped stitching, and she gazed at the wound in Lizard's side, caked with blood but not bleeding. Her hands fell to her lap and she looked up at her brother. He rolled his eyes - yet again - and tore the thread with his teeth. "Never met anyone out here as squeamish as you."

"Bad thing?"

Lizard nodded before shoving the needle into Ruby's awaiting hands. "Yeah."

Ruby rose, feeling guilt pit in her stomach. She sighed shakily and put the needle back into the drawer where she got it. Lizard sat in Big Mama's chair, reclined and looking peaceful - better than he had a while ago, she'd admit. She had gotten away from the altercation with Hades better than most. Her only injury was a deep gash to the back of her forearm, right along the bone, which Lizard insisted on stitching up before she even got to him.

Despite everything, he really was a good brother.

She turned to look at him, her eyes wide and worried when she spotted his eyes closed. Had all that not been enough? She couldn't lose him. She couldn't lose her brother, no matter how harsh he could be at times. Tears welled in her eyes.

"Don't start cryin'," Lizard spoke, his eyes still closed. "Ain't helping."

"Okay…"

Ruby remembered all the strength it took to haul him back to the test village, all the while hoping that Hades, Chameleon, and Gretel didn't take the opportunity to kill her and her brother where they stood. Then again, they couldn't. That would be breaking the pact that Hades and Papa made…

But, then again, Chameleon had clearly tried to kill them both. And Hades had just _laughed._

Ruby nodded to herself, thinking that yes, she would tell her father when he got back.

Until then, though, she kept her eyes on Lizard, watching as his chest moved up and down softly, the gracious indicator of his life.

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><p><em><strong>End Chapter One.<strong>_


	2. Exit Light

_**Disclaimer: **__I don't own The Hills Have Eyes._

_Thanks for the reviews for the last chapter! I really appreciate the feedback. I definitely didn't expect to get much feedback for this, but I'm glad that y'all took the time to review. Anyway, here's the latest chapter. I suppose I needed a break from my other, larger project. Please enjoy!_

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><p><strong>Edge<br>Chapter Two: Exit Light**

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><p>The hot sun beat down on Missy Martinez's brow as the large armored truck made its way through the deserted planes of New Mexico. The truck glided easily over the sand, but there were always bumps that even the truck couldn't take, and those caused the brunette to be jostled about, her thin frame still apparent even in the thick army uniform she wore.<p>

She listened as the members of her unit talked and gossiped, making fun of Napoleon the most. Thinking all of it completely childish, she refused to join in. Amber's giggles at one of Mickey's random jokes were enough to make her sick. Though she knew Amber to be capable of defending herself, she wasn't so sure if she should get too friendly with Mickey. After all, that's how everything always started. With a guy.

She decided to make the best of this situation in which everyone was ignoring her, and looked out at the desert, focusing her gaze above the heads of her makeshift family. She could hear Napoleon grunt in distaste as another remark was made to him. This one more crude and despicable, courtesy of Crank. Crank was probably the only one in her unit that she would welcomingly shoot, if things came down to it.

Missy chose to not focus on that. Instead, she tried to do what she had intended to do before Crank's remark. She scanned the desert with slightly weary eyes. It was not an often thing that she was able to rest and relax, just stare at the symmetry of the desert, seeing a random, dried out tree that could be as far away as a hundred yards, but seemed so much closer due to the vastness of the area.

She saw that there were very vague lines along the sand, as if the wind had blown the sand itself into something resembling waves. She smiled at that, somehow wishing that she could draw the scene. The colors of the desert had always appealed to her, especially when the sun set and everything really came alive.

"Water?"

Missy fought back the urge to jump at the familiar, friendly voice. She looked over to her left where Delmar was sitting, a water bottle clenched in his outstretched hand.

She might have refused under any other circumstances, out of sheer stubbornness and the desire to not have to rely on anyone else, but the desert was too wild and unpredictable to not go without water when available. Missy offered Delmar a slightly crooked smile - he was one of the men that she could actively trust, in and out of combat.

"Sure," she replied. The words sounded strange on her tongue. She realized just then how parched she really was. Not wanting to look weak, she took the bottle out of Delmar's hand with a grateful glance and started drinking. She paced herself, not wanting to drink too much and make herself sick, but in a matter of minutes she ended up emptying the bottle.

She found herself flushed with something other than the heat and looked around. No one had noticed except Delmar, who was smiling genially.

"You know, you can tell people when you're thirsty." His teeth were blindingly white.

She shrugged in response.

Missy heard Delmar laugh a bit at that. If anyone wasn't put off by her demeanor, it was him. Amber and Napoleon were the other two, she thought. And Sarge, well, he didn't care one way or another, but he was like that with everyone. Was supposed to be.

She sighed and twisted the bottle between her hands, thinking that she would give anything to be away from here, back at home. The longing to see her son was almost unbearable. Subconsciously, she ran her finger across the sleeve of her jacket, just where Clyde's name was tattooed on her skin.

Missy sighed as she remembered the last time she saw him - well over two weeks ago. Thinking of her little man with her parents back in New York made her incredibly homesick. She craved one of her mother's famous meals, wanted to joke around with her father, longed to play doctor with Clyde. She tried to push the feeling to the back of her mind, but to no avail.

This whole mission was kind of odd, if she were to be honest with herself. Earlier in the day, they had completely failed in a simulation-type battle, ending with Napoleon getting them all blown up by a woman with bombs strapped to her chest. Fake ones, of course, but Missy had to admit that her heart had definitely skipped several beats in result.

Sarge had, of course, blown a gasket. Harsh words had been thrown and they had been given a mission of sorts - to deliver equipment to the scientists that were currently in Sector 16 of Yuma Flats doing Lord knows what.

She wasn't concerned, though. This should be easy. Deliver equipment, practice shooting and combat, try not to get Sarge on her ass, and then leave. Nothing major. Just another day.

Missy had never been more wrong.

Driving up to the camp that was set into the base of a massive rock formation, she couldn't help but feel that something was off. Maybe it was years of watching her back setting in, but she had the feeling that something just wasn't right about the place. She waited until Spitter parked the truck and Sarge jumped out of the passengers' seat to tumble out of the back of the truck, just a bit behind everyone else.

If the initial feeling of wrongness wasn't enough to deter Missy from the place, the complete desertion of the camp confirmed what she felt.

Sarge noticed at once that there was no one anywhere. Obviously he had the same kind of hunch that she did, telling them to split up and look for any person they could.

Though a rational voice in the back of her mind told her that they could have just been somewhere else, she thought it wasn't likely. This whole situation was odd. Shouldn't somebody have been manning the camp? It was very strange that there would be no personnel there at all.

"Shit!" came a voice. It was Delmar. An irrational worry swelled in her chest, and she immediately darted over to where his voice came from. Seeing that he was okay, she immediately cursed herself for worrying so much. It wasn't a good thing, caring like that. The other soldiers did so as well, converging around him with their guns to their side.

"What is it, Delmar?" Sarge demanded, coming around the corner and looking as tense as a bowstring.

Delmar didn't have to answer - the large amount of blood staining one whole side of the main tent spoke for itself.

"Damn," Crank muttered. "What the fuck is going on here."

"We have a problem, that's what's going on!" Sarge shouted, turning to the group of soldiers.

"That's too much spray for the person to have survived…" Missy murmured, pressing her fingers to her chin. "Way too much."

Amber moved over to Missy's side, "What do you think happened?"

"No clue," Missy said truthfully. She felt sick to her stomach.

"Prepare yourself," Sarge commanded. "Looks like there's one sick fucker who lost his mind out here. Damn good place to do it."

Crank was beside Missy, shifting from one foot to another and cursing under his breath. Though he certainly talked a good talk, she knew Crank was more than squeamish when it came to matters like this. It would have been comical if the situation wasn't so horrible.

"What should we do, Sarge?" Mickey asked, calm and collected. He might have been a goof on just another day, but Missy was always impressed when he was faced with a serious situation. He could change on the drop of a hat.

"Well, we obviously need to find whoever did this," he snapped in retort. "Half stays here, half comes with me into the hills."

"What?" Missy found herself saying, "That's…splitting up isn't a good idea. We should stay down here and radio for help!"

"Did I ask your opinion, Martinez?" Sarge snapped. "Now, the best thing we can do is find whoever it was that did this. And, if I were the sick fuck, I'd certainly not stay on the ground. I'd hide up in the hills."

He made a good point, but Missy couldn't shake the feeling that going up into those hills was the very worst of ideas. Call her paranoid, but if Missy knew one thing at all, it was to trust her gut instinct.

"Just for saying that, Missy, you stay down here and radio for help. Spitter, Napoleon, Stump, you three stay here and keep lookout. Everyone else is with me."

Just as he said that, a bright light shone from the top of the hills, as if reflected off of a mirror.

"Look!" Stump shouted, pointing upward, "Hey, it might be someone!"

Sarge acknowledged that, but then said to Stump, "Don't get excited. This is not an exciting situation."

Missy sighed. She hated being demoted to calling for help, but she supposed it was her own damn fault for being so vocal before. She can't help it if her mothering instincts took over, especially at a time like this. Sarge looked at her then, nodded with trusting eyes, and moved his group up the side of the hill. Before they followed, Delmar and Amber each caught her eyes and gave reassuring nods and smiles causing Missy to feel anything but reassured.

She turned back to the camp, tried not to look at the bloody canvas of the tent, and moved to sit at the table and radio for help. Stump and Spitter were fighting over something, and Napoleon was walking over to use the port-o-potty. She took off her helmet and raised the phone to her ear, moving dials and hearing nothing but static - an eerie shiver passed over her.

Several minutes passed. Napoleon came out of the bathroom and was zipping his fly when it happened.

"What the hell!" Spitter exclaimed.

Missy looked up at the sound of his voice. She gazed over at him. He looked absolutely terrified for a split second before running over to where he had been looking. The scent of smoke then decided to hit Missy full force just as Napoleon and Stump both cursed and followed Spitter.

Missy jumped up and ran after them.

"What the fuck is this!" Stump cried, his voice wavering.

Thick black smoke billowed out of the truck, consuming their only means of transportation.

No way out, Missy thought numbly as her eyes raked over the vast and craggy hills in front of her.

What had seemed so beautiful to her before was now a death trap.

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><p><em><strong>End Chapter Two.<strong>_


	3. Enter Night

_**Disclaimer: **__I don't own The Hills Have Eyes._

_Oh, my goodness! Thanks so much for your kind reviews. I really enjoy hearing what everyone thinks of this little story of mine. I hope that y'all like this chapter. This fic is really enjoyable for me to write, so I hope that y'all enjoy reading. Thanks so much for the support!_

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><p><strong>Edge<br>****Chapter Three: Enter Night**

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><p>Missy pursed her lips as the three men around her started to bicker.<p>

Curses were thrown about like they were baseballs. Phrases that she had never heard before were strung together. The panic in the air was palpable, which was odd, considering that they were part of the army. Shouldn't they be able to keep cool, even in a situation like this?

"Hey!" she snapped, turning around. "Calm down."

The three of them turned and stared at her, heads cocked to the side. "Missy, seriously? This guy is going to kill us!" Stump exclaimed, flailing his arms about.

"How is that any different than a combat situation?" she asked logically. Missy brushed a loose strand of hair out of her face, annoyed. "I'm going back to continue calling for help."

Spitter sprung toward her then, "I'll go with you."

Missy looked back at him, "I can take care of myself, Spitter."

He gave her a long glance, not questioning her statement, but still concerned for her wellbeing. She felt a small stab of guilt for snapping at him like that, so she beckoned him forward, even though the look in his eyes showed that he would have followed her regardless.

She nodded at him, allowing a small amount of regret to enter her dark eyes before walking back to the station to call for help. As soon as she got close enough, she paused, a chill crawling down her spine.

The phone had been smashed beyond recognition.

"Oh, God," Missy said under her breath. "Spitter."

"Yeah," he said, though his voice sounded far away. "What do we do, Missy?"

Missy tried to find an answer to his question, but nothing in her mind could formulate a reply. She was too shocked to think straight, an unusual mindset for her to be in. She looked to where she had left her gun, a lapse that she ordinarily wouldn't have had. "My gun's gone…"

Spitter looked at Missy, strangeness in his gaze. "You didn't take your gun with you?"

"Did you?" she questioned.

Spitter looked over to where he had left his gun - it was now conspicuously missing. "No."

Missy closed her eyes and rolled her shoulders, feeling something akin to madness settling underneath her skin. She strode back to where Napoleon and Stump were still staring at the burning mass of the truck, and said, "Do you two have your guns?"

Napoleon nodded and brandished his weapon, while Stump shook his head.

"Where'd you leave yours?" she asked Stump.

"By mine," Spitter answered. "It's gone. Napoleon's gun is the only weapon we have left."

Missy cursed under her breath and looked up to the hills. Somewhere, the rest of the squad was roaming about, looking for a madman who was clearly on the ground with them and not in the hills.

_Either that, _Missy thought, that infernal chill racing down her spine yet again, _or there are more than one._

But how could this happen? Something like this - a massacre of sorts, she supposed, there weren't any bodies to judge what happened completely - shouldn't be able to happen on a military base like this. Not with capable, armed men. Not with people trained to kill others with a moment's notice.

"What do we do?" Napoleon's nervous, jittery voice cut through her thoughts. He was at her side now, gun in hand. At least someone was smart enough to remember to keep theirs by their person at all times. Missy mentally scolded herself for not taking her own rifle with her when she had left to investigate the smoldering wreckage of the truck.

"Nothing for us to do down here," Stump replied. "The only thing we can do is go up."

Missy glanced into the eyes of each of her fellow squad members, a sudden tension settling over her as she realized the true gravity of the situation. There was a very good chance that they wouldn't make it back down, whether it be due to falling from the sheer cliff face or from the madmen that roamed them.

Napoleon looked at Missy, his eyes concerned, "What do you think?"

Inhaling deeply, she looked at Napoleon, his innate nervousness almost making her smile. She was certain that even if there wasn't a possible troop of madmen out there, he'd still be as nervous as all get-out. "What other option do we have? We have to warn them."

Spitter nodded, as did Stump. Napoleon looked a bit queasy, but he nodded his assent in the end. Missy rolled her shoulders again, trying to loosen up her taut muscles. The fact that they had to wear their bulky, heavy uniforms in this scorching heat didn't help anything, but she knew that there were worse things out there.

"I guess we go in head first, right?" Stump questioned, a light-hearted grin on his face. Missy sighed inwardly. Count on Stump to bring out the jokes, even in a time of strife.

"Right," Spitter said. With that, he started to lead them up the side of the craggy cliff in front of them.

It was slow going, at first. Nothing happened, which to Missy was beyond eerie. Shouldn't there be a sign of life anywhere? But, no. No. There was nothing out among the rocks other than a few plants that looked to be clinging to life. She found it odd that she could not find a trace of any other animal. Not even a scorpion or rattlesnake. Nothing to signify that anything living had ever graced this place.

The ever-present shudder rolled over her spine as they ascended the cliff. Higher and higher they climbed, unaware of anything that could be of harm to them. Missy tried to feel as confident and calm as she usually did, but with a madman on the loose and no gun on her person, she felt almost naked. Sure, she could take down anything with her bare hands - they had taught her that in training - but still, it was rather unnerving to be without the constant support of a gun.

Then, almost as if in mocking, gunfire sounded.

None of them expected it. Napoleon jumped skittishly and cursed. Stump and Spitter both remained grounded, but Missy could see the tension making up their shoulders. She had to stop herself from darting glances around like a frightened animal. She forced herself to remain composed, yet she could feel the tension settling in her back and legs, just as she had observed in her squad mates.

Missy inhaled deeply through her nose, trying to calm her racing heart. She shouldn't be so shocked by the familiar sound of bullets popping, but somehow, in this heightened atmosphere, she found herself increasingly on edge.

"That's the guys," she said lamely, as if trying to bring some logical thought to the situation. "But what would they be shooting at?"

"They must have found the psycho," Stump shrugged his thin shoulders, dismissing the fact.

Missy, however, knew better. _There must be more to it than that._

They continued walking. The uneasiness leftover by the earlier gunshots was still present among them, like a rather large elephant in a particularly small room. She found herself wanting to crawl out of her skin almost, as if to take any effort she could to get out of this place, out of this situation.

Minutes after the gunfire, the screams started.

They were chilling, heart-rending screams. More gunfire. A strange, sinister, high-pitched scream that sounded of victory.

Missy felt her blood grow cold.

"Guys," she began, looking around. The other three gave her identical looks of disbelief before focusing their gazes upward, to the highest portion of mountain where they thought the screams had originated. Who knew, really, with absolute certainty where they had come from? The desert distorted sounds, and unfortunately it was working right now.

"We should go check it out," Spitter said, pointing in the direction that Missy herself had thought the screams had come from. The tremor in his voice was easily masked, but she could make it out as if it were the most prominent sound in his voice. "That couldn't have been good."

Napoleon adjusted his gun on his shoulder. He seemed to be a bit more confident than the others, simply because he had something that could dispense death instantly on his person, without having to get up close and personal with whatever the thing was that was causing so much strife.

"Right," Stump said. Missy looked over and saw that he was rubbing his forearm, his fingers ghosting over the tattoo that she knew resided underneath the thick fabric.

Maybe they had a bit more in common than she thought. She felt her own fingers moving over her jacket, hovering over the place where Clyde's name was etched permanently onto her skin, recalling how she would do that very action when she was nervous.

It was her musing that distracted her.

Usually on point and on top of things, Missy was caught off guard.

A sudden movement - something slid underneath her feet and caused her to collapse to the ground. Her sharp cry was cut off by a dirty hand pressed against her mouth. A lean body covered her, pressing on her back and shoving her face in the dirt. She screamed against the bony hand, and that was when the three soldiers turned to look.

They cried her name simultaneously as the person started to drag her backwards - into a hole in the side of the cliff she must have glanced over before. Missy started to struggle. As she did so, Napoleon took longer than usual to brandish his gun, and that was all it took for the person to have what they wanted.

Writhing and screaming all the way, Missy was dragged down into darkness.

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><p><em><strong>End Chapter Three.<strong>_


	4. Catacombs

_**Disclaimer: **__I don't own The Hills Have Eyes._

_Okay! Here's the latest chapter. I totally took a break off of schoolwork to relax and write this. Originally there was going to be a different chapter four, but it felt more like a chapter five, so here this is. I really wanted to write a bit more on Missy before we got back to Lizard and the rest. Anyway, my Chameleon is a bit different than the one we see in the movie. Basically the same beast I wrote in "Sandstorm". Anyway, I really hope that y'all enjoy this chapter and I will try my best to update soon! Thanks so much for the reviews and support from last chapter, I really appreciate it! So, please enjoy!_

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><p><strong>Edge<br>Chapter Four: Catacombs**

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><p>She screamed.<p>

The figure clamped his hand down on her mouth, and she bit as hard as she could, tasting blood. He didn't stop in his movements, though. Whoever this person was, he was adamant in getting her further into the depths of the cave. He had her legs locked in the hold of one of his arms after he had realized that she wouldn't walk along willingly with him.

He cursed at her, but instead of flinging his hand away from her mouth, he pressed his palm tighter into her mouth, as if trying to get her to choke.

Missy released him from her grasp before coughing and hacking. He was crushing her to his chest in a possessive kind of manner. She couldn't escape. For such a lanky, unassuming person, this guy was strong.

She still tried to struggle, though. Some facets of her personality didn't waver when faced with a crisis. She tried kicking him, but he had her securely bound to him. Her arms were pressed into her side. Shrieks tried to escape from her throat but his _fucking hand _was covering her mouth. Rage enveloped her, almost masking the fright she felt.

Almost.

They weaved through a corridor. She had yet to see his face, but she at least knew he was a man. Missy was shocked at how tightly he held her, possessive to the extreme, almost.

The strangest thing was, these corridors were deserted.

There was no one else in sight. However, it was rather hard to see when being pressed so tightly against another being's chest, their hand muffling your every sound. What was more perplexing was the fact that she was being so _easily_ restrained. It was as if this man, as wiry as he was, had more muscle mass than anyone she remembered encountering. But she knew that wasn't true.

It frustrated her.

The strange tunnels went on for what seemed like forever. Though Missy's limbs grew tired of struggling, she did not falter in her attempts to get this man to let her go.

Somehow, she ended up elbowing him upward, as if she was trying some avant-garde way of giving him the Heimlich. He sputtered and dropped her, the wind knocked out of him. He started coughing, and this was the only chance Missy got.

She sprung to her feet, only a bit wobbly after having been dropped on her backside. Missy started running clumsily, a rare feat for her. She felt the hard-packed dirt against the soles of her boots. Her army jacket was a hindrance, but she couldn't afford the time to get rid of it.

She wouldn't trip, she vowed. She would _not _be like those girls in horror movies, falling over themselves in attempt to get away from the villain.

Missy made good on her promise. Her strong legs propelled her forward like there was nothing blocking her way. She jumped over large clumps or rocks, dodged fallen beams of wood, crawled underneath a pipe of some sort. There was a puddle of water that she leaped over in a desperate attempt to get away.

She hadn't realized that she had been making an odd, whining noise in the back of her throat and cursed herself. She mustn't show weakness, especially not at a time like this. Missy bit the side of her lip, hating the fact that she allowed those weak sounding whimpers escape her.

She kept running.

Moments passed - they seemed like hours and seconds at the same time, going by so slowly yet as quickly as if someone had blinked. All the passageways looked the same. Dank and dingy, dirty and dark. Everything melded together. In a moment of dizzying horror, she thought she was going in circles.

But that couldn't be…could it?

She was surprised she was able to dodge recapture for this long. A part of her knew what to look for - a bright light, a whiff of fresh air. None of those things greeted her, and she felt her panic begin to rise.

Her legs were starting to tire. How long had she been running? The only sounds she could hear were her boots pounding on the ground and the occasional dripping of water. She hadn't even noticed that the front of her uniform was soaked until she looked down and realized she had stomped through a rather deep puddle that had back-splashed on her.

Her eyes were stinging, but she would not cry. She would _not _show weakness. She was _not _a victim. She wouldn't _allow _herself to be a victim.

"Dammit," she whispered as she turned a particularly sharp corner and banged into the side of a protruding beam. The wood didn't tear through her jacket, but she was certain she would have a hell of a bruise to deal with. _Maybe a cut, _she thought, feeling a small trickling of liquid down her arm.

Pushing the stinging pain to the back of her mind, she darted ahead, forcing her screaming muscles to be silent. Forcing the fatigue out of her limbs. She knew that she could keep going for as long as she needed, due to her training, but…

How long until she eventually gave out? The human body could only take so much…

It was then she turned a corner and _he _appeared.

Standing in front of her, the lanky and strangely strong man from before was looking at her as if she were a particularly interesting object. His icy blue eyes were vivid against strange, rocky skin, the texture of the very rocks of the hills. He licked the corner of his mouth, and she saw that his tongue was an unnatural shade. A chill went up and down her spine while a grin fell across his face.

He tilted his head to the side, those strangely calculating eyes seeming to bore right through her, and said one word, simple and unaffected by her stressed state.

"_Pretty_."

Missy found that her hands were trembling. She balled them into fists. _No weakness. No weakness. _The mantra she had repeated throughout her marathon through the twists and turns of this odd place was now the only thing she was thinking. She couldn't allow herself to think of how he got in front of her, why he had caught her in the first place, why he hadn't killed her yet…

If the hunger in his eyes was any indication, she didn't _want _to know.

There was an odd thing about the word, as well. She had expected the person to be hardly literate, someone grunting and groaning random words without knowing their meaning. This man knew what that word meant, and if the look in his eyes was any indication, he knew many more, clearly educated.

Missy turned to run.

He was quicker. Her tired muscles had weakened considerably in the time she had allowed herself the small break. He grasped her wrist, which was his first mistake. She reared back her leg and kneed him in the stomach. The predator let out a sharp exhalation of breath and let her go.

Again, she ran.

This time she didn't get far. The man recovered quickly this time and grasped her ankle, tripping her. A vague sense of déjà vu overwhelmed her as she was dragged back beneath him. She squirmed in his grasp, flipping herself over so that she was face to face with the monster.

He leaned over her, eyes quizzical and curious, yet seeming to stare lewdly at her at the same time.

She contemplated her course of action. What could she do? He had her arms and legs pinned. Spitting? No, that would only piss him off more, and not do any damage in the long run.

Bracing herself, Missy knocked her head against his. There was a hard, smacking sound as their skulls met. Missy herself felt dizzy, but the man released his hold on her arms, using his slender hands to grasp at his forehead. This allowed her time to wriggled out from underneath him - she had only just realized how close their bodies actually had been - and started to stand.

She lurched, feeling the effects of the headbutt on her own body as well. Missy fell forward into a puddle, the murky water splashing over her sweat-covered face, soothing as well as sickening. She started to drag herself forward, digging her blunt nails into the dirt, using her elbows as if they were her last method of escape.

The instinct to flee was strong, so strong that it almost overrode the panicked thought that _she didn't know where to flee to._

Missy kicked the side of the man's head with her boot before clawing forward. It was still too quiet. This man couldn't be the only resident here, if her former thoughts and assumptions were correct. There had to be others…there had to be…

"Wait!"

Was that…what was that psycho telling her to wait for?

Missy turned to look back at him, the strange cadence of his voice far from soothing, but instead of looking back at him, her eyes were distracted by something even more sinister looking.

A pair of worn boots had situated themselves right in her line of vision. She tensed. Those were definitely _not _the feet of the man behind her. She gazed further, studying the boots..._army __boots?_ A hysterical sense of hope penetrated her subconscious.

A strange cackling met her ears. It sounded vaguely familiar, like the laughter of the person from before…when she had heard the gunfire…

There was a rustling, shuffling sound from behind her as the other person rose to his feet. Missy looked up at the person stopped in front of her - if this was how it was all going to end, her attacker could at least look her in the face as he killed her.

The creature was grotesque, even more bizarre-looking than the one who had kidnapped her. Bumps and knobby growths adorned his body. He wore army attire, to Missy's shock. It was a mockery of the uniform - she felt her blood boil just by looking at it.

Defiance set in her shoulders, making her muscles feel stronger than they had before. She rose to a crouch, and just as the newcomer was poised to strike at her with a pickaxe, she maneuvered herself to kick in the kneecap of her would-be murderer. The man crumbled, the pickaxe falling to his side.

_Weapon, _she thought, delirious. _Weapon._

But just before her shaky fingers could clasp around it, the only salvation she had was yanked up by the lanky man. The one that wore the army uniform was still on the ground, holding his injured knee.

Missy looked up at him, her eyes feeling far too large and far too frightened. He was going to kill her…of course he was. He was going to murder her and then all of her friends. She rose to her feet, as if to say, _"Do it, then," _and tried to formulate yet another escape plan.

The lanky man looked odd with the pickaxe in his hands, almost as if he weren't suited for a weapon. In the short time that Missy had been around this guy, it seemed as if he used his stealth and cunning to get things done, not brute force and blunt objects. But the pickaxe was far from blunt, she knew. This was made even more apparent when he took the weapon and placed it - strangely, gently - underneath her chin, lifting her face up so that she could get a better look at him. It was strange, how she hadn't noticed how tall he was until now.

"Do not run," he spoke, and the very tone he used sent shivers down her spine. "You will not run. If you want to survive, you will do as I say."

There was something very serious about his tone, something that Missy knew she should not trifle with. The groaning man on the ground was lifting up his pant leg to examine the damage done to his knee.

"Letch, go do something more productive. She is not yours to have."

"Shut the fuck up," the one revealed as Letch complained. "Kill that _bitch_! Kill 'er."

"You know that is not an option." The words were weighted with meaning - meaning that Missy didn't want to figure out. "There are plenty others you can amuse yourself with," he drawled, "_on the surface_."

The pickaxe was cold and solid against her chin. She felt it digging into her jawbone. Somehow, she kept her position, looking for an opportunity.

"_Go_." The singular word had enough power to it that the other man, as rash and hotheaded as he seemed, rose and limped away, cursing the latter all the while.

Missy stood rigid, all her muscles locked into place, her fists balled at her sides. The man was observing her now, icy eyes foreboding but still having the overt curiosity she remembered from before, as if he had never quite seen anything like her. There was a moment in which the tension was so thick it seemed as if it could be cut with a knife. There was a flicker across his impassive gaze - something that she instantly took notice of. There was the change in his gaze, and then the action occurred.

In one swift movement, he flipped the pickaxe over so that he gripped just above the bladed portion, and hit her in the temple with the handle so hard she saw stars.

He had never actually laid a hand on her in such brutal violence, so this was doubly shocking as well as unexpected. Missy collapsed to the ground, ears ringing, head pounding, clenching her skull with trembling fingers.

Suddenly the man was behind her, as liquid and smooth as anything she'd ever been aware of, and had her by her neck, pressing down on her windpipe with the crook of his elbow as his other hand restrained both of her wrists.

She knew what this was…why hadn't she thought of it? Sleeper hold…sleeper hold…

Her thoughts were muddled, black spots entered her vision, and she felt herself unable to struggle as he pressed harder. Her body grew slack against his, leaning against the lean musculature of his form.

Before she lost conscious, Missy's only thought was that she had been bested.

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><p><em><strong>End Chapter Four.<strong>_


	5. Of Betrayal and Brotherhood

_**Disclaimer: **__I don't own The Hills Have Eyes._

_Thanks so much for the responses for the last chapter! I didn't expect it! But I'm really glad that everyone is liking this so far. I've had this chapter done for a while, and I'm just now getting around to posting it thanks to college and A&P II. Anyway, I hope that y'all like this chapter. I'd love to hear from you! Thanks for reading!  
><em>

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><p><strong>Edge<br>Chapter Five: Of Betrayal and Brotherhood**

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><p>Papa Jupiter kicked off his boots before he entered the main house in the test village. The sand scattered for a moment before blowing away. He flipped his neck from side to side, earning several light pops for his efforts.<p>

He looked behind him to see Pluto lumbering forward, his head low, carrying a large, random bag of spoils from the latest couple of victims. Nothing much. Motorcyclists usually traveled light. There were several bottles of water, a few bags of chips, and a melted candy bar. The humans themselves didn't look to be too healthy, either. Strung out on drugs or something. Jupiter groaned slightly when he realized that he would have to make a trip to Jeb's later that day. They were running dangerously low on food and Jeb usually ordered more than what was required to run a gas station in the middle of no where. For them, of course, during times like this.

The fact that they had somehow eaten up all of their stocked food was something that irritated Jupiter, and he aimed to talk to his family about this as soon as he could.

But, things couldn't be that simple - they never were.

"Papa!"

His mood was momentarily softened by his daughter's voice calling out to him. That slight warmth that she brought was replaced with a stab of paternal worry at the particular tone she used when addressing him.

"Yeah," he grunted, sitting his pickax up against the wall by the door. Pluto stepped through the door at that moment and walked past his father. He looked oblivious to the fact that his tiny sister was distressed as he sat the two small backpacks carried by the motorcycling couple on the table in the kitchen.

Ruby looked up at her father before reaching out with a tiny hand and grasping his own. He tensed, but let his smallest child lead him to whatever was bothering her so.

There was a moment in which he felt something dry and flaking against his fingers. He looked down to see that Ruby's hand was coated in blood.

"Ruby," he started, threateningly. "What's happened?"

Jupiter was able to get a better look at his daughter's arm, seeing the row of ragged stitches across the length of her forearm and the blood that had caked around it. He cursed. "Ruby, what the hell happened?"

"Papa," she said, tugging at his hand with even more force. He found that he had stopped, shocked at her condition. He finally was led to the living room, where his son was lying in the chair, asleep - or, rather, he _hoped _he was asleep.

Lizard looked like hell. Gashes and cuts, some deep, others large, adorned his body. Bruises were starting to form. His clothes were soaked in blood and were even more tattered than usual. He would have thought he was dead if not for the steady but slow rising of his chest.

Jupiter looked sharply down at Ruby, "_Tell me_ what's happened."

Ruby let go of her father's hand and started to stroke the stitches on her forearm, wincing lightly. She looked like she just wanted to dissolve into herself, away from whatever had caused her this pain. A sudden, fierce protectiveness stole over Jupiter's body, strengthening his muscles. He vowed that there would be hell to pay for whoever did this.

Ruby uttered one name, and that very name sent a thrill of hatred through Jupiter's wiry form.

"Hades."

He hadn't realized he was baring his teeth until the growl came out of his throat. His hands had curled into claws, aching to rip and tear and _kill_.

"When?" It took all of his power to just say that one word.

"A-After…you and Pluto left…"

"Tell me everything." His word were clipped and clinical, detached and desperate.

She relayed it all to him in excruciating detail, her thin voice wavering during the particularly disturbing parts. Ruby wrung her hands in front of her, dreading that he would shout at her for not being stronger or for not being the one to take the fall instead of Lizard.

Instead of that, at the end of her story, Jupiter laid a surprisingly gentle hand on her shoulder.

"You did good, Ruby," he said. "Thank you."

She stared at her father, her eyes large and watery. Ruby sniffled and then nodded, a strange little motion that somehow made her seem even smaller than she was.

"Pluto," he called toward the kitchen, where the largest member of the family was moving about. "Get Goggle. Tell him to come home. _Now_."

Pluto peeked his massive head in the doorway, looking confused, but understanding what Jupiter was saying. He gave a slow nod and brought out the walky talky and grunted several words into it as he walked out the door.

Jupiter hadn't even realized that he was at Lizard's side until he was staring closely at the latter man's face, trying to map out every bit of damage done to the thin mutant. He looked at his face, seeing scrapes and cuts shallow enough that they didn't need stitches. He looked at his arms and a spot where his shirt was lifted from his body, seeing the neat, practiced stitches done by Ruby.

"You told Mama and Big Brain?" he asked her as she shuffled to his side, hands trembling as they pressed against Lizard's tanned forehead.

Ruby shook her head. "Didn't have time. Needed to help Lizard…"

Jupiter nodded. He would have to go tell Big Mama, Big Brain, and Cyst everything that was going on, not to mention brief Pluto and Goggle when they returned.

"We all need to stick together for a while," Jupiter stated, motioning around them. He, Ruby, Lizard, Pluto, and Goggle all lived in the largest test village house, while Cyst and Big Brain shared a residence and Big Mama, Venus, and Mercury lived together. "We can't let them take advantage of us being separated."

The house they lived in now was a two story test house that gave each of them their own room. Jupiter figured that privacy wasn't an option anymore now that Hades had openly attacked one of his clan. _My son, _he thought angrily.

Ruby nodded. "Yes sir."

Jupiter looked out the window and saw that Pluto had successfully retrieved Goggle in what should be considered record time. They were still rather far away from the test houses themselves, but at least they were both okay.

He paused for a moment, wondering what his next course of action should be. Jupiter looked over at Ruby, who was staring at Lizard with so much emotion in her face that Jupiter felt like he had been punched. He set his shoulders and called over to her, "Ruby, I'm going to go gather everyone else and tell them the news."

Ruby looked up at her father. He gave her one last glance before turning and heading out the door.

Jupiter breathed in the hot desert air as he shut the door behind him. There was something in the air besides the sand and the humidity that he just couldn't place. After all his years in the desert and tolerating his brother, he knew the feeling of unease in the air almost as well as the feeling of his heart in his chest.

He went and got Big Mama and the kids first. They were the closest. Venus and Mercury were happy to see him - they were happy to see anyone, really, as long as they weren't Big Brain. However, Pluto was by far their favorite. Big Mama didn't look happy leaving her television, but Jupiter was adamant. She sighed and picked up Venus and Mercury, balancing them on her hips as she made her way out of her house and toward his.

After making sure they were in the door, Jupiter went and made the longer distance to Big Brain and Cyst's house. The wind blew against his matted hair and made him wish he had brought a hat along with him. After a few minutes of walking, he was on their doorstep.

The door was ajar.

Alarm bells went off in Jupiter's head. He eased forward, and pushed the door open.

The scent of blood met his nostrils.

Immediately, he was rushing through the house, desperately trying to find the source of the smell. He couldn't fathom what he would possibly find. The smell was so thick…it couldn't have been from any kill, could it? They had the shed for that…

Jupiter turned the corner into the living room and paused in relief at what he saw.

Cyst was working diligently over a corpse, separating the shoulder from the body at the kitchen table. Big Brain was in the next room, watching something on the television. Jupiter sighed and felt like screaming at them in frustration.

Big Brain didn't even have to turn his chair to know that it was Jupiter in the room. He only said, "Crazy thing, that. Cyst found them at the bottom of some cliff. Can't believe - "

"You two are coming with me," Jupiter interrupted. "Now."

Cyst cocked his head up for a moment, looking curiously at the leader of their small clan. "What?"

"We have a problem." Jupiter went over to the television and shut it off. "Hades has struck out against us."

"Can't say I'm surprised," Big Brain wheezed. "Fine then. But you're wheeling me over there. Too difficult to do this myself."

Jupiter glared at the most difficult member of his family - other than Lizard, of course - and rolled his eyes.

After a while and a few more complaints from Big Brain, the three of them ventured outside the house and onto the sandy ground of the desert. Cyst loped close by, dragging the meat to put into the shed's freezer before moving back behind Jupiter.

They got closer to the house when they saw him.

"Damn it!" a voice shouted, hoarse and rough. "_Fuck_!"

"Son!" Jupiter exclaimed, rushing over to him and leaving Big Brain where he was. Cyst followed, looking concerned.

Lizard was lying in the sand, wounds open and bleeding. He was desperately trying to claw his way through the sand to get to a standing position. Growling, he started to make his way forward, gradually. Slowly. But somehow there was something defeatist in his position, something that Jupiter never associated with his son.

Jupiter crouched down beside him, grasping his bony shoulder roughly and glaring into Lizard's ice blue eyes. "What happened! Are you 'lright?"

"'m _fine_, Papa," he said. "Ruby…_Ruby_…"

There was a certain pain to his voice that made Jupiter know what Lizard's next words would be, even before they passed his mangled lips.

"They _took _Ruby."

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><p><em><strong>End Chapter Five.<strong>_


	6. Desperate Times

_**Disclaimer: **__I don't own The Hills Have Eyes._

_Thanks goes to __**Berry's Ambitions**, __**The Hills Are Watching** **You**, and **Alucard Hellsing 101 **f__or your lovely reviews and support! I hope that y'all stick with this story and enjoy this latest chapter! Thanks so much again for reading!_

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><p><strong>Edge<br>****Chapter Six: Desperate Times**

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><p>Thank God for her endurance training, was all Amber could think.<p>

A lesser person would have been completely overwhelmed, probably would have tripped over various things and have fallen about like some flailing doll. And while Amber certainly had the blonde-haired, blue-eyed look of a Barbie, she was anything but. She was an army brat by choice and by upbringing.

These _things _were underestimating her. Just like everyone else in her life.

Amber wasn't sure where they had first ambushed them. These…mutants? She had heard stories, vague, silly nightmares that her father had told her when she was a child, of testing gone wrong. Of cannibalistic mutants. But those had just been _stories_, right?

She was starting to doubt that now.

They had encountered Redding - the leader of the expedition below - on the rocks. After a chilling warning, "They're everywhere, you know. I pity you fuckers. Especially the women. You've got two on your squad, don't you, Jeffrey?"

Amber remembered the term he used, the exact words before he blew his head off, "They keep the women and use them for breeding - keep their numbers up. I'd tell you to hurry away, but you're already in the hills. This is _their _territory. Only one way to escape, now."

The shot that ended his life had resonated through her body as if her bones were made of glass.

_Breeders._

She shuddered as she jumped over a particularly craggy rock, landing on the balls of her feet quickly before turning around and pointing her gun. No one was there. _Where did he go?_

The radiation - if the rumors were to be believed - certainly didn't damage their intelligence. Crafty little bastards, they were. They had managed to observe that Sarge was their leader, their masthead, and took him out first. Some crafty maneuvering on one of the freaks' part was enough to make Crank miss the hill dweller completely and fire an array of bullets straight into Sarge. He had died minutes later, with Delmar pressing desperately down on the wounds and Amber fighting back tears.

Though none of them were incompetent, Sarge was their leader, and having that one safety net ripped from beneath them was jarring.

They had gotten Mickey next. The jock with the bright smile and the blue eyes was taken down by an _arrow_ of all things. Straight through the neck. And before Amber could tell him to not pull it out, Mickey had done just that, ending his life even quicker with blood soaking his uniform.

Amber had turned then, seeing a _female_ mutant. And this was equally jarring. Her tall, Amazonian physique was something that she didn't expect, certainly, as well as the slightly disproportionate head and larger than normal eyes. And that _bow_. That would certainly be a problem.

Amber fired a few shots in her direction out of anger, she had to admit, because she killed Mickey. _Mickey._

The woman had laughed - a strange, high, disturbing sound - and dodged out of sight, slinking like a snake down into a crevasse in the rocks.

Amber growled to herself. It was down to only her, Delmar, and Crank now. Her heart was hammering wildly in her chest, as if possessed. She still had ammo, which was a plus. Everything else was sickeningly in the negative direction.

She breathed in and out, trying to calm her rattling nerves. She kept telling herself it was just a battle situation, like everything else. Why couldn't Missy be here? She was always the calm one, the level head, the rock. Or Napoleon? Sure, his neuroticism was intense to a nauseating degree, but he would at least have a view on things that would help. Not that she was short handed with Delmar or Crank, but she couldn't help but wonder…

"Amber!" Delmar shouted. "Amber! You okay?"

"F-Fine," she stammered, cursing herself for sounding weak. "Where's Crank?"

"Bastards!" She didn't have to ask twice. "Stupid, stupid fucks!" The pounding of gunfire sounded.

"Quit firing your gun in the air like that! We need to save our ammo!"

Thank _God _for Delmar, too.

Amber peeked out from the rock she was hiding behind. Delmar was glaring angrily at Crank, which would have been comical under any other circumstances, but not today. She rose from her position and moved over to her two squad mates.

"What do we do now?" she asked.

"Obviously, keep an eye out for you," Delmar pointed out. "Remember what Redding said?"

She bristled, remembering the exact words. "How could I forget?"

Crank started to curse, sounding more stressed than she'd ever heard him. He looked over to her, and the concern in his eyes was more than a little shocking. She stepped forward and started to say his name, but shouts interrupted her. Shouts that sounded shockingly familiar. Shouts that ended up forming a name.

"Missy! _Missy_!"

Amber stiffened, looking in the direction of the shouts. Delmar and Crank stood at attention. "Did…is that the others? Are they saying _Missy_?"

Delmar looked sick. "I think so."

Without any further communication between them, they started running in the direction of the voices.

After only minutes of running, they found themselves facing the group assigned to stay with the very person they were looking for. Spitter, Stump, and Napoleon all looked at Amber and her two comrades as if they had seen a ghost.

"You're _okay_!" Spitter stumbled over his words. The innocence of his statement was refreshing, but untrue.

"The three of us are," Delmar stated calmly, but raw emotion rattled his words. "We can't say the same for Mickey and Sarge."

Napoleon looked like he had been slapped across the face.

"What happened to Missy?" Amber asked, cutting to the chase. Though the question needed to be asked, she had a sinking feeling that she knew what had happened to her friend. Panic settled into her bones just thinking about it. Delmar tensed beside her and Crank cursed.

"She…" Stump began, his eyes wavering for a moment before he looked away. "She was taken."

"_Taken_?" Crank practically exploded at the word. He was holding his gun in a careless manner, one that suggested he might shoot Stump if he didn't tell him what he wanted to hear. "What the fuck do you mean, _taken_?"

"By this guy!" Stump exclaimed. "This mutant…mutant _freak_! She was just standing there. Next to this hole. We thought nothing of it, but then she was…was…_dragged_…"

"Dragged? _Dragged_?"

"Yeah!" Stump snapped back. "As in, _pulled _down into wherever that mutated fuck was taking her! Dumbass!"

"Dumbass? Who you callin' a dumbass?"

"_You_, last time I checked - "

Delmar stepped forward and placed his hands on both of their chests, pushing them apart. "Hey! I don't know what the hell you two are thinking, but this is no time to be turning on each other! We need to get Missy!"

"Missy's probably dead, if they killed Sarge and Mickey," Napoleon reasoned.

"No," Amber interrupted fiercely. She turned to Crank and Delmar. "Remember what Redding told us? They don't _kill _women."

Delmar winced while Crank got oddly silent.

"What do you mean, _they don't kill women_?" a strange tone of panic entered Napoleon's voice, more panic than usual. Amber felt the urge to comfort him, but no comforting words seemed to be allowed in this place. "What do they do to the women, then?" His eyes grazed over Amber's tiny form.

"Breeders," Delmar provided the answer when Amber didn't seem to be able to. "To keep up their numbers."

"What…" Stump trailed off as he started to wring his hands on his uniform. Amber didn't think she had ever seen him so concerned. She remembered their banter about tattoos, but that seemed so long ago. "But they can't do that to Missy!" The concern in his voice was palpable.

"They will," Amber said grimly. "So we have to go get her."

"Of course." Delmar adjusted his pack on his shoulder. "I guess the only option we have is to head down where they took her."

"Why are you here, anyway?" Amber asked. This had been bugging her ever since they had mentioned the way Missy was taken. "Why didn't you go in the hole after her?"

Looking down at his shoes, Stump was the one who answered, "We thought we might find an easier entrance up here. The hole she was dragged into was so small that none of us could fit in. Not even Napoleon, and he tried."

Amber nodded. She could understand that. "I…think I saw one of the things move towards the top of the hill over there." She pointed. "I'm not entirely sure, though."

"Then let's go," Napoleon said. Amber was shocked at how in-control he sounded. Steady and no-nonsense. She supposed that was what certain conditions did to people. "In and out. Kill anything not named Missy. Easy. End of story."

"Wait a second," Stump said, pausing. "Where's Spitter?"

A yelp responded, and everyone was on guard, turning around and staring. Gaping at what they saw.

A large man, bald and with a paunchy stomach, had just drawn a ragged, crude blade across Spitter's throat. Blood gushed from the wound, flowing onto the front of Spitter's uniform and all across the man's large, wicked hands. The mutant laughed wickedly and threw Spitter's body forward, landing in front of him with a resounding thud.

"Spitter!" Stump cried, lurching forward. Delmar and Napoleon cried out in protest. Crank's curses were the only thing intelligible. Amber felt her shoulders start to shake.

The mutant put two thick fingers to his lips and whistled. The two figures from before - the one with the cleaver and the woman - climbed from the rocks around them, making a v-shape formation with who seemed to be their leader in the center.

Amber tensed, reaching for her gun. She locked eyes with the one who killed Mickey.

_Easy _would not be the word she would use to describe this situation.

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><p><em><strong>End Chapter Six.<strong>_


	7. Plan of Attack

_**Disclaimer: **__I don't own The Hills Have Eyes._

_Thanks to __**vamplova21**__, __**Berry's Ambitions**__, and __**Little Pink Neko **__(I'll have to get used to this name change, Marina, lol) for your reviews and support. I really appreciate it and I hope that y'all enjoy this chapter! _

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><p><strong>Edge<br>Chapter Seven: Plan of Attack**

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><p>Lizard slammed himself into the rocking chair, a mess of blood and sand and desperation. Sweat poured off him in rivulets, running in his eyes, his face a marred expression of anger, disbelief, and self-torture. He looked up at his father, who stood over him with a menacing expression on his face.<p>

"Son," he began calmly. This calm, rather than any kind of anger his father had ever shown, was enough to get Lizard feeling uncomfortable. Anger he could deal with; the strained, forced composure he could not. "Start from the beginning."

"It don't matter!" Lizard shouted in response, desperately trying to rise and leave the house. "It don't matter! They got Ruby."

"Sit down," his father scolded, taking a hand and shoving his son down into the chair. Lizard winced as Jupiter's fingers came into contact with his now open wounds.

"Like hell - "

"You _will_," Jupiter stated firmly, "sit down."

"We have to go get 'er," Lizard began. This was the obvious statement. There was nothing in the world more important than retrieving Ruby from the mines, saving her from a fate worse than death. If he knew Hades - and they all did, unfortunately - then they knew what could possibly happen to one of their youngest family members if they waited too long to act.

"You ain't going nowhere until you're better," Jupiter replied. "Now. _What happened_?"

"Goggle an' Pluto were still headed this way. You an' Big Brain an' Cyst were out there. Big Mama was upstairs gettin' Venus and Mercury settled. I was the only one down here with 'er. With Ruby." Lizard stated the events in a clinical, detached tone, but anyone that knew him could distinguish the raw anger in his voice. "One of 'em - Letch. _Letch_. That bastard. Second fastest next to Chameleon - came in through the door. Just _barged_ in like he owned the damn place - "

Jupiter started to growl.

"Hit me over the head. I didn' know what was goin' on. Next thing I know…_he took Ruby_."

Everyone was crowded around Lizard at this point as if he were the teller of some awful, ill-fated bedtime story.

"I tried," he said, his voice an agonized moan. "_I tried_."

Pluto gave a muffled whimper of sympathy in the background.

"Lizard, I never doubted that." Jupiter kneeled at his son's side, looking up at him. "If anyone was gonna give them hell, it was gonna be you."

"_I _would, if I could get outta this damn chair."

Everyone looked at Big Brain, whose voice had penetrated the serious bubble of the room. Lizard felt like throttling him, but he held himself back. His wounds had reopened. Blood, sticky and wet and alien-feeling, seeped through the stitches that Ruby helped create.

_Ruby._

Lizard lifted himself from his chair, standing on wobbling legs, but was resolute to not let it get to him. He couldn't let his weakness show or his father would think he wasn't up for the rescue mission.

And _oh_ was he up for it.

Lizard glared his father in the eye. "What you think we should do?"

"Come up with a plan."

"A _plan_?" Lizard snarled. "D'ya know what they could be doin' to her _right now_? While we in here plannin' shit, they're gonna be - "

"Lizard!" his father spoke up. "We rush in there now, without our heads, without a plan, we'll all be killed. And then Ruby ain't got a chance."

Lizard sneered, but didn't protest. Jupiter had a point, though he wished he didn't. There were so many things buzzing around in his head right now that he didn't have time to put them in order.

And so they planned.

Jupiter had a very analytical mind; Lizard liked to think that he inherited that one trait from his father. As he watched his father motion and start to plan out things, he wondered distantly what would happen without him, without their patriarch, and then dismissed it.

The plan was a simple one. There were several entrances, usually with one person on guard near each one. Sometimes would be a lapse in the security, other times there would be no way in. They would scope out the area and determine where the weakest areas were. Jupiter, Pluto, and Cyst would confront the area of most resistance, where Hades no doubt had most of his sons guard. Goggle would then sneak through the place left naked and unguarded by their efforts. Being the quietest and smallest, Goggle would easily be able to maneuver his way through the mines and find Ruby.

"Wha' about me?" Lizard protested, clenching his fists. He still refused to sit down, wanting to be in the midst of all the planning.

"You stay here." Jupiter glared at him.

"Why?" he asked, drawling. He felt tiredness seep into his bones, but he tried to rail against it.

"Look at you." The patriarch jabbed his index finger at Lizard's frame. No matter how much he wanted to deny it, Lizard knew that his father had a point. But he wanted to be out there, fighting, saving his sister, slashing at that damned other clan's throats. He wanted to be fighting. Everyone _knew_ that Lizard was the most skilled…

"Easy pickin'," Cyst gasped from the back. Lizard found himself resisting the urge to hit him just to show how much of an _easy picking_ he was.

"'xactly," Jupiter replied, satisfied.

"I'm goin'," Lizard insisted. He didn't care if he died in the process. He would help his family get Ruby back. It was partially his fault that she had been taken, anyway… He couldn't just let that go like it meant nothing. And if anything happened to Ruby and he was just sitting here as if he were as good as dead…

"It's okay, Lizard," Big Brain spoke up, consoling him from the background. "You'll get used to hanging out with the women soon enough. I did."

A thwacking sound. Big Mama must not have liked that comment too much. Lizard felt his marred lip curl into a smirk at that. Though he couldn't see her from this position, he knew what that felt like. Big Brain certainly deserved it.

A light bulb clicked on in Lizard's mind. He bit his bottom lip and clenched and unclenched his fists to keep himself from barging in on the conversation again. If he was going to get away with what he had planned, then he needed to be as unnoticeable as possible now.

The plans were finished. Simple but effective, Lizard believed. If everything went according to plan, then they would have Ruby back soon enough. Today, tonight even, if things went swimmingly. And Lizard had every intention of being in on the rescue mission. It was required of him. If anything, he needed to be the one to carry Ruby back to safety. An irrational big brother complex, he supposed.

Everyone broke off then, going their separate ways. Pluto and Goggle had to go get their weapons, while Cyst talked with Jupiter. Cyst finished what he was saying and then walked off, following Lizard's brothers out the door.

That was when Jupiter fixed his glance on his son.

Something akin to ice water threaded through his veins. That look was never good. Lizard set his eyes, defiantly, on his father's face. "Wha'?"

"I know what you're thinking, son," he said.

Of _course_ he did.

"You take after me more than you know," Jupiter continued, the twang to his voice apparent. "And I know what you plan on doing."

Lizard stared at him defiantly.

"_Don't._"

That was all his father said before turning and leaving the room.

Night was falling quickly. It always seemed that way to Lizard at least. He hobbled to the window and gazed out of it, listening as slight bits of conversation met his ears. He would certainly be watched, that was for sure, if he knew his father at all. The oncoming dusk was enough to make him want to leave this confined space. Really, his injuries weren't that bad. Really, he could make his way to the mines and not get killed. Really…

His mind was set.

Lizard walked up the stairs, hobbling as he went. Really, the pain wasn't that unbearable. He'd had worse. He really had…

He passed the door where Big Mama was tucking in the two children for the night and headed to the bedroom that he usually inhabited. Right across the hall from Goggle's room and a neighbor to Pluto's.

If he was going to make everyone think that he wasn't going, he'd have to play the part. At least for a while.

Lizard moved to the bed and sat down, propping up a few pillows and leaning against them as he watched the sunlight leech out of the surroundings. Usually, he'd be against a night strike, especially on someone's home turf, but he knew they had little to no choice, considering what kind of person Hades was and what he was likely to do. Nothing was off limits to him, nothing at all.

The shuffling downstairs went on for a while, and then was punctuated by some murmured voices and then the door shutting as the group went out on their rescue mission. The television turned on, Lizard could hear the static.

And he waited.

With much difficulty, he made himself sit still. He leaned over to glance out his window to see the group begin to walk in the direction of the mines. With a hand, he wiped the matted, dirty strands of hair that were splayed across his forehead. Idly, he wondered what happened to his hat. He'd have to go look around the cliff bottom where he fell. Or something.

Adrenaline was still coursing through his veins. The tiredness from before, brought on by his wounds, was completely gone and replaced by something more primal and foreboding - the desire to kill.

Lizard rose from his seated position, not able to stay in one spot for much longer, and saw the small dots in the distance that were his family. The sun was setting behind the hills, bathing everything in an orange glow. They wouldn't notice him if he left now. Not at all.

_Good._

Resolute, Lizard turned and clutched his spiked belt in his bloodied fingers. Anyone not up-to-date with the goings on would probably think he'd already been in a battle for his life. He turned to his dresser and pulled out a few other knives from the last drawer. All the guns had been taken by the other rescuers, leaving Lizard with the knives. Accurately thrown, they could certainly cause death. Anything could, really, if used in the right way.

He sighed and hooked a few along his belt as quietly as he could. The house was quiet but for the television. Sound carried.

Lizard walked to the door, prying it open, trying to mute the telltale squeak it always made when opened. He peeked his head out of the door, feeling like an idiot for doing so, and noticed that no one was out there. Big Mama was likely still with the kids, and Big Brain couldn't get up the stairs without help.

Moving out of his room, he started to walk quietly down the warped boards of the stairs, feeling the reassuring weight of his weapons at his waist, wanting desperately to put them to use.

No one had called out to stop him. He was feeling particularly self-satisfied as he passed the main living room.

At least, until Big Brain called out, "I wouldn't do that, boy."

Lizard _hated _being referred to as _boy_. Almost like an irritated cat, his shoulders rose of their own accord, and in his irritation, he spat, "I'd like to see _you _fuckin' stop me."

Without waiting for a reply, Lizard threw open the door with much more force than necessary and stepped out into the dusk-tinted desert.

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><p><em><strong>End Chapter Seven.<strong>_


	8. A Captive

_**Disclaimer: **__I don't own The Hills Have Eyes._

_Thanks to __**Berry's Ambitions **__and __**Little Pink Neko**__ for their lovely reviews! It means so much that people are still reading and reviewing this fic and I hope that everyone likes this latest update! Please enjoy!_

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><p><strong>Edge<br>Chapter Eight: A Captive**

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><p>The drip, drip, dripping of water was what finally woke Missy.<p>

She knew that she probably shouldn't make a sound, but her head was _killing_ her, and she moaned in pain as soon as she moved. She felt as if she had been run over by an eighteen wheeler, and then said eighteen wheeler had backed over her in spite. The events of the past slipped through her grasp, like smoke through her fingers. She tried desperately to cling to them, remembering only ice blue eyes.

And with that simple memory, everything came flooding back.

Missy shot up, the pain rocketing through her head as she did so, and looked around her. There was nothing out of the ordinary. The room she was in was filthy, outfitted with a few crude chairs and a desk. A makeshift bookshelf of sorts was in the corner, underneath a crooked photo of a group of houses. There was light filtering in through a hole in the wall next to the bed…

_Bed? _she found herself thinking, puzzled.

It was then she noticed the oddly comfortable bed that she had been laying on.

And then she registered that her hands and feet were bound.

"Damn it," she cursed to herself. She was surprised that she hadn't noticed sooner, blaming it on the disorientation she felt from the head wound.

She looked at her feet, seeing that they were wound together, tightly, with some kind of rope. Her hands were tied together as well. Though inconvenient, she was relieved to find that she was not tied to any other object in the room. She could leave - if only she could find a way out of her bonds.

Easier said than done.

As if sensing she were awake, a figure appeared in the doorway, pushing the crude piece of wood out of the way and walking into the room with a sense of grace that shouldn't be possible. She recognized him as the man from before, the one who captured her, though she couldn't be sure if _man _was the most accurate description of him.

"You are awake." The way he studied her made her intensely uncomfortable. His eyes raked across her, and she was reminded of the way that a guy would look at someone they were interested in. But there was something about this look that was different than all the rest. There was a cold, calculated cunning in it, something other than pure hormonal impulse, that fueled this gaze. She had a feeling that she was the first woman he had seen in quite a while.

"No shit," she bit out before she could stop herself. The very sight of him enraged her, and she couldn't keep back the bitterness in her voice.

His lips twitched and then thinned out. "You should know that escape is a futile prospect."

Missy felt her lips stretch into a feral-feeling grin. "Yeah? Well, so is trying to talk me out of it."

He looked at her for a moment, and then walked forward, his gait long and almost predatory. There was a look in his eyes that chilled her, but she couldn't let it show on her face.

"You have a mouth on you," he said, bending over and looking at her. He kept his distance, she noticed, and wondered if it was because of their scuffle earlier. She knew what she would have done if he came closer - she would have rammed her head against his, aiming to crack his skull.

Maybe he was warranted in staying away.

Still, she wished he would come closer, wished he would give in to the curiosity that was palpable around his person.

"You should come closer," she taunted. Maybe that would work.

He looked stunned, as if no one had ever talked to him in that manner before. He stared at her for a few seconds, quirking his head to the side, and she thought for a moment that he would actually venture closer. She was ready. She tensed her muscles.

"Just because you are bound, does not mean you are not dangerous." But his fingers twitched, as if itching to touch her, and his eyes betrayed the calmness of his words. There was a sudden sense of foreboding that hit her. The confidence she felt before almost drained from her body, and then something struck her. They were alone, and he was a savage mutant. What was keeping him from…from having his way with her?

She shuddered at the thought.

A mistake.

He drew closer to her in that moment, sensing her weakness, sensing the fact that she was now aware of what he could do to her. The mutant stepped forward, clearly not wanting to be controlled by the fact that Missy was an experienced fighter, and in one fluid movement, grasped her by the neck and pressed her body against the bed. He was strong, frightfully so, and she gasped at the contact.

Mind wheeling, she asked, "What's…your…name?"

This caught him by surprise. Good. He didn't remove his hand from her neck, only let his fingers stroke the skin there, surprisingly gentle, but the grip was hard. It was a strange contrast. She was surprised that he stopped, though she probably shouldn't have been. His eyes were hard, but intrigued.

"Chameleon." He squeezed his hand tighter around her throat. She saw spots, and tried to grip at his slender, mottled wrists with her fingers.

"Like…the…animal?" she asked, injecting a wryness in her tone that she was surprised she had.

Again, he seemed surprised by her. The tone in which she asked it must have caught him off guard. He paused, his fingers loosening their hold on her throat. The spots cleared from her vision, and she was able to see him looking down at her as if she were the most interesting creature he'd seen in a while.

Or she could be imagining things - the most likely solution, since she'd almost had her oxygen cut off.

"I suppose," Chameleon said. It was odd, now having a name to go with the creature, the creature that wasn't such a creature after all. He was seeming more human by the minute, and that frightened her more than thinking he was just a bloodthirsty mutant.

She wracked her brain for something else to distract him, but his face was so close to hers she could hardly think. His breath was hot on her cheeks, and somehow that made her feel cold.

"You are trying to distract me, so you may get away." She felt the dip in the mattress as he leaned a knee on the bed, pressing his lean body closer against her own. "Clever. No one has ever tried that before."

Missy tried to find a biting retort, but his words froze her. "There are others?"

"There _were _others," he said, as calmly as if telling her the weather. "You are the only one as of now."

"What became of the _others_?" Missy hated herself for asking the question, but couldn't find any other way around it. She knew it had to be asked; it was something that was inevitable. Knowing what happened to them was something that might let her survive, might be one of the keys to getting out of this place.

Chameleon cocked his head to the side, bringing his face lower to her cheek. She felt his nose brush against her cheekbone, too soft for someone so brutal. Her breath caught in her throat, and she hated herself for having this kind of reaction - she felt too shocked, too claustrophobic, to even breathe.

"They were breeders," he told her. "Father says we must keep our numbers up."

_Breeders_. The word slapped Missy across the face as shocking and as painful as a physical blow.

"And then?" she asked, her voice barely a whisper.

"They died," he replied. "None of the children survived, either."

Missy tensed, but then tried to fix the muscles of her face so they wouldn't show the shock and horror she was feeling.

"So what's the point?" she questioned, yet again, feeling the strength creeping back into her, though her voice was thin. "What's the point if they all die?"

"You do not say no to my father. Not unless you want to die."

Despite the muggy heat of the cave-like room she was in, Missy felt cold, as if all the blood in her veins had turned glacial. She couldn't find a way to injure him, as close as he was to her, but in spite of that, the information he was providing was crucial.

_But, _a voice in the back of her mind prodded, _he could be telling you this because he assumes you will die soon._

"I believe his words, once, were, 'Trying is half the fun, anyway,'" he continued. He leaned forward and their foreheads clinked together for the briefest of instances. She realized that she could have bashed her head against his, but didn't, and wondered why that was so. It wasn't until his finger brushed against her mouth that he realized her lips were trembling.

"Hey!"

The two of them stiffened at the new voice. It sounded different from Letch's. This voice was more nasally, and sounded like it came from an older person.

Chameleon turned his head while keeping Missy firmly pressed down on the bed. The heat from his body combined with the heat of the room and the cold in her veins was something that almost made her disoriented. "What is it, Grabber?"

Missy was able to get a glimpse of the aforementioned Grabber, seeing a short and scarred mutant with cracked glasses perched atop his nose. They did him no good, apparently, because he squinted as he looked at them. He sniffed the air a bit and said, "Chameleon?"

"Yes, it is me." Chameleon's voice held a bit of dryness that would have caused Missy to smile had it been any other situation.

"I know you ain't messin' with that girl. You know what Hades will do to ya if he don't get first dibs," Grabber scolded.

Missy found herself watching Chameleon's face as he conversed with this Grabber. Another member of this clan. She had a feeling that the one that did most of the…_dibs_ on the women was this Hades - who sounded like he was the "father" to which Chameleon referred.

"I am not. We were just conversing." Chameleon had his eyes clenched shut, his brow furrowed in dislike. Missy felt him fist his free hand amongst the dirty bedclothes.

"I wish you wouldn't use words like that, boy, ain't nobody understand you."

"Nothing is happening, Grabber. I am just talking to the girl."

"Alright, then," Grabber drawled, though he sounded like he didn't particularly trust what Chameleon was saying. "If that's all it is. I'd hate to have to get Hansel patch you up again like the last time you angered your daddy."

"I have never touched his breeders," Chameleon replied, shocking Missy with his truthfulness.

"This 'un different?"

Chameleon opened his eyes and looked at her. They were searching, questioning, as if wondering just what it was that caused him to pin her to the bed like this. She pursed her lips, clenching her jaw as she did so. There was a moment in which his eyes softened for a bit, and he replied, "Leave. I will watch her until Hades returns."

"Alrigh'. Letch say it's a damn bloodbath up there. Hades should be around soon."

Missy winced, and that didn't go unnoticed by the mutant perched atop her. Grabber excused himself and shuffled down the hallway - or what she assumed was a hallway or a tunnel or whatever these catacomb-like passageways were called. She noticed that he kept his hands out in front of himself as he walked, as if making his way by touch.

Chameleon detached himself from her completely, straightening himself in a very businesslike manner. He rolled his head from side to side and then turned, walking to a small rocking chair that was placed in the corner and folding his long, thin body into it. He sat up, back ramrod straight, and placed his long-fingered hands on his knees before focusing his gaze on her.

She glared back, putting all her defiance into the action.

The mutant didn't break his gaze, his eyes boring into hers so intensely that she almost physically felt his hands on her.

And somehow, despite the faint stirrings of an escape plan formulating in her mind, she felt a sick sense of comfort in his presence, just knowing that at least someone would sit with her for a while longer.

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><p><em><strong>End Chapter Eight.<strong>_


	9. A Fugitive

_**Disclaimer: **__I don't own The Hills Have Eyes._

_Thanks to __**Berry's Ambitions **__and __**Little Pink Neko **__for their kind reviews! Thanks so much for sticking with this fic! Means a lot! This update is rather…long, so I hope that y'all enjoy!_

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><p><strong>Edge<br>****Chapter Nine: A Fugitive**

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><p>"So, you're just going to sit there?"<p>

Missy looked at him as if trying to decipher the meanings of the universe. She found herself calming down now that he was away from her. Her mind was starting to focus on the weak points of the room. The possible escape points. There was only one that she could see. The obvious one. The door. She wanted to scream with the oncoming feelings of futility.

"That seems to be the plan," Chameleon replied. He was sitting so straight that Missy felt it should be painful. His back straight, hands on his knees. Like he had never known the meaning of the word _comfort_. He hadn't moved in what seemed like hours. "I have a feeling that if I were to leave, you would try to escape. And that you might just be successful."

She found herself scoffing despite herself. This was hardly the place to find humor, but she felt that his reluctant respect of her abilities caused her to feel rather light despite the harshness of the situation.

"And," Missy grunted, trying to arrange herself in a more comfortable position, "that wouldn't be good for you, I guess?"

"The opposite of good, I fear," he replied bluntly.

Missy felt her head cock to the side of its own accord, and a shooting pain stabbed through her skull, reminding her just how she got into this position. She winced, trying to place a hand to her head, but to no avail. She was still bound tightly. She really needed to figure a way to get out of that particular situation before she even tried to formulate an escape plan. The one that made most sense was, _run like hell when you have the chance._

"I suppose I hit you rather hard."

Missy felt the sarcastic remark forming in her head, but decided against voicing it. This was no time for sarcasm. In reality, she should be more terrified, but there was something about Chameleon's presence that was now more soothing than it should be. Maybe it was a product of her shock and fright that she _wasn't_ scared. She vaguely went over the previous events in her mind, trying to sort out the important bits, any amount of information that would allow her an advantage, but somehow she came up with nothing.

However, she remembered the word "breeder" had been thrown around as if it were used so often it had lost its meaning. And apparently, Chameleon had no part in this, but…this _Hades_ had.

"It doesn't matter. I'm just a _breeder_, anyway," she murmured with spite as the word itself crossed her mind again. Cold dread washed over her. There it was, the refreshing bit of fear that kicked her instincts into high gear. "You're sick," she spat. She just couldn't get over the callous nature of their world.

Chameleon closed his eyes and moved for the first time in what seemed like forever. He placed a long, slender, mottled hand in front of his face and squeezed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger.

"The plan is the brainchild of my father," he replied in an almost exasperated tone. She wasn't sure if he was trying to justify his actions or just explaining a fact. Either way, this was disgusting and she found that she could hear the blood pounding in her ears. "It does not mean all of us share his views."

Missy knew that he could very well be lying. She narrowed her eyes and struggled against her bonds, earning an ache in her head and a rope burn on her wrists. Though, if he wasn't lying, this could be a valuable opening, "Then let me go. If you don't believe in what your father is doing, _let me go_. I'll get my friends and we'll all leave you alone."

Chameleon looked at her in that moment, lifting his face from his hand. His ice blue eyes were almost pitying. She found that she disliked that look even more than when he looked murderous, but she could also see the wheels turning in his head. She could see that there was quite a brain behind that monster, which had been apparent ever since he first opened his mouth.

"Your friends," he said tentatively. It was the beginning of a statement, one that he did not finish. Missy felt the lingering sentence as if it were a physical blow. She knew what he was not telling her, and it chilled her.

Most of her comrades must have been slaughtered already.

Tears threatened to prick her eyes, but she beat them back. There was no time for breaking down. She couldn't allow herself to. She had to think of an escape plan. And, if what Chameleon had told her about the breeders, there was a good chance at least one of them would still be alive - Amber.

Nostalgia threatened to beat her over the head as she thought of her best friend, one of her only friends. The frightening thought was that maybe Amber wouldn't be as lucky as Missy, being kidnapped by the one civil mutant around these parts. And she used the term "civil" _very _lightly.

The silence stretched on, and Missy wasn't sure if she wanted to break it. Chameleon had gone back to imitating a statue, and she retreated into her mind. She wriggled her wrists just a bit, thinking back to training and what would happen if captured. But, she figured, this was nothing like those scenarios. She wrinkled her nose.

"Is the smell repellant?" Chameleon asked.

Missy realized what her face must have looked like and she barked out a laugh. "You really are something."

"I am afraid I do not know what that means."

Missy shook her head. This guy was really an odd character. He hadn't laid a hand on her since that Grabber character came by and reprimanded him for it. Not that she minded. She swallowed and tried to take deep breaths. Panicking now over what could possibly happen to her in the future was not what she should be doing now. That would not help her get out of here.

As she thought of possible ways of getting out of her bonds, most which involved a lot of chewing on her part, she figured that something that overtly obvious would attract the attention of the security detail currently on her and he would stop her before she ever made leeway. Closing her eyes to fight against the pressing feelings of helplessness and inadequacy, she leaned her head against her bound hands, letting herself fall into a peaceful place that might clear her mind.

A slight pressing on her bladder pulled her away from her thoughts. The feeling was nothing she hadn't experienced before, and it was nothing that she couldn't ignore at this point, but the idea had already sprouted, and she was opening her mouth before thinking it through. In fact, as soon as she started to talk, her mind berated her, _What if they don't have bathrooms here? What if they just - _

"I need to go to the bathroom," she said, injecting the appropriate amount of embarrassment into her voice, adjusting her legs to indicate that she could not wait any longer. _Oscar, please, _she thought with venom.

Chameleon blinked over at her lazily, as if expecting this. He sighed. "Fine."

Missy moved around, indicating that she was still bound. "Um…"

But the lanky mutant was already rising from his position, moving over to her with little sense of purpose. He untied her from the bed, leaving the bonds that wrapped around her wrists and ankles in tact. Then, with little preamble, he slung her over his shoulder as if she were a sack of potatoes. She let out a little squeak, not expecting this turn of events, as he stalked out of the door.

His large hand was gentle on her back as they moved swiftly through the mines. She half-wondered why he hadn't just allowed her to walk on her own, but then she realized that he probably thought she'd run for it. He was right.

They journeyed through the mines, winding through passageways that were cluttered with random objects and fallen planks of wood. Missy thought that there would never be a way out until he stopped. She felt the breeze created by his swift walking cease, and he plucked her off his shoulder as if she weighed nothing, setting her on her feet gently.

Missy glanced forward, seeing that she was in a rather small room, with a surprisingly large pooling of water that sloughed down into the earth through a crevice, most likely where the waste would go if one were to use the bathroom here.

Such an amount of water…she never thought she'd see anything like this in the desert. It was like some kind of bizarre illusion that should have been brought on by heat stroke or something.

Chameleon bent over and undid the bonds from her ankles before moving to get the ones from her arms. He jabbed a thumb in the direction of the miniature pond. "There," he said. "Go ahead. I will wait out here."

Missy watched him as he slung a wooden door over the opening of the supposed bathroom, leaving her trapped in the darkness. There was only a slight puncturing of light from a hole in the wall above her head that allowed the sunlight to shine through.

She paused, trying to think of where to go now. She couldn't possibly escape through that small opening at the edge of the pond - not if she wanted to get out of here alive, that is. She glanced about the joint to try to find a weapon, anything that could aid her in her escape, and found nothing. She growled to herself in frustration.

When thinking that the appropriate amount of time had passed, she knocked on the door and Chameleon moved the board out of the way. He nodded and grasped her wrist.

_No bonds? _she thought, surprised. _**This **__I can work with._

The two of them walked through the halls, with Missy's mind wheeling, her eyes searching for whatever she could use to incapacitate Chameleon. A brief stint of guilt washed over her, but she mashed it down. There was no time for that, even though the fact that it was Chameleon that had captured her was the only reason she was alive and unharmed. She shuddered.

"Hey!" a voice called out. She recognized it from before. Letch. "Hey, look, Cham!"

Letch, still in those blasphemous army clothes, had a small girl in his grasp. Her thin wrists were easily enveloped in only one of Letch's hands, and she looked to be crying. In the darkness, Missy could barely make out her features, but she noticed that her eyes seemed to be slightly disproportionate, but her face still had the cute features of a young person.

Chameleon stilled, his fingers tightened around Missy's wrist. The sound of his voice was deadly and as cutting as a knife when he spoke. "What have you _done_, Letch?"

"Easy, easy," Letch raised his one free hand as if offering a promise of peace. "Papa'll be proud about this 'un, huh? He's 'lways enjoyed getting one over on ol' Jupe!"

Missy felt a fierce protectiveness overcome her. This girl looked to be so young, couldn't be over sixteen, and they were treating her as if she were an item. One of their…_breeders_.

Her eyes landed on a piece of wood propped up against the wall. It was splintered and still had a few nails embedded in it, but it would do. In fact, it was perfect.

Her plan was set.

Chameleon had completely turned into a statue again, so it was easy to break free from his grip. In one quick movement, she grabbed the board - it was heavier than she thought, but she hefted it with ease - and smashed it against Chameleon's side. He buckled, clenching his ribs, and then Letch came at her.

Chameleon was taking an unusually long time to get up, so Missy was able to focus on getting Letch out of the way. She used the board again, but it broke on impact with his head. This seemed to anger him, and he reached for her. She retreated back into a place of fight-or-flight, and she fought. She ducked underneath his reaching arms and kicked his knee in. He shouted and stumbled lightly. She took this opportunity to send a crippling kick to the back of his head.

He fell forward again, and Missy used her knee to dig his face into the dirt. She looked up to see that the girl hadn't moved in her shock. Missy shot forward, grasping the girl around her slim waist, and started to move, but not before getting a look back at Chameleon.

He was clenching his ribs, but his eyes stung through her as if they had barbs. He did not move to stop her.

Through her shock, Missy nodded at him, an understanding passing through them. She looked at the girl, and said, "Get on my back."

The girl nodded and slung her thin frame over Missy's back, piggy-back style. This would be easier than having to drag her around, and she was lighter than Missy thought. Maybe that was just the adrenaline talking.

Missy set off through the winding caves. "Do you know a way out of here?" she asked the girl, whose head was nestled in the crook of her neck.

The girl pointed to the left, toward a passageway that looked like it would take them straight into hell itself. "You sure?"

She felt the girl nod, and Missy had no choice but to trust her.

It was touch and go from there. Missy barking questions and the girl providing directions. The twists and turns of the mines were insane, and she wondered how in the world those mutants didn't get lost on a daily basis. Her feet thudded desperately against the hard packed dirt floor of the caves, occasionally going across a patch where they had decided to put down hardwood floors. Her heart pounded in her chest as she moved.

"There! There!" it was the first time the girl spoke, but the words were urgent. She was pointing to the side, where sunlight was shining through. Missy's heart leapt as she saw the ragged, weatherworn door, sun peaking through the slats in the wood. She turned that way, when a force stronger than anything she ever felt, pummeled her, sending her flying into the wall. The girl tumbled from her back and Missy felt the brunt of the blow, hearing the crack of her skull as it smashed against the wall.

Still conscious, Missy opened her eyes and looked at the door. It was there, taunting her with it's promise of escape. She looked to the girl, whose eyes were wide and staring ahead of her. Missy followed her gaze and saw a large man with hate in his eyes.

_Hades, _Missy thought. Though she didn't know why, she had an inkling that this was the man of which Chameleon was so in reverence. It could be no other. Being in his very presence was enough to make her want to retch. Sinister intentions rolled off him in waves.

Her head spinning, she got up and ran, grabbing the small girl and pressing her against her side as she did so.

She barreled her side into the door, and it burst open without much protest at all, as if it were just for show and not for actual use. The bright sun stunned her for a moment, and she felt a hand grasping at her collar, trying to pull her back. She fought for the light, desperate to feel it on her skin, desperate to get out of the place, desperate to save the girl as well as herself.

"Ruby!" the voice that called out was not that of the monster behind her, and it was not that of the girl she currently held. It was a new voice, rough as a sandstorm, and it held the most venom Missy had ever heard.

Her vision was blurred - she blamed it on the headshot - but she could just barely make out the person who had cried out. Bedraggled and bloodied, with wild hair and wilder eyes, holding something shining in his hand that he hurled at Hades. The object - a knife - sliced across Missy's cheek and hit Hades directly on the hand with insane precision. He let Missy go with a roar of pain, allowing her to stumble forward, holding the girl as if she were precious cargo.

Missy's head ached, felt like it was splitting in two, and she fell to the sand, which stung her wounded cheek. She was vaguely aware that she was mumbling, "Take me, not her," for reasons beyond her comprehension.

She felt a rough hand press against her face, brushing strands of hair away from her closed eyes, before she lost consciousness.

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><p><em><strong>End Chapter Nine.<strong>_


	10. This Fire Burns

_**Disclaimer: **__I don't own The Hills Have Eyes!_

_First, thanks so much to__** Person Of A Strange Origin**__, __**Berry's Ambitions**__, and __**Little Pink Neko**__ for their reviews! They mean so much to me! I'm so glad that y'all are enjoying this so far. I'm pretty nervous about this chapter, so I hope that everyone likes it! Thanks so much for continuing to read this little fic of mine! _

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><p><strong>Edge<strong>  
><strong>Chapter Ten: This Fire Burns<strong>

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><p>Lizard searched his head for a word to describe what he was feeling as he trekked to the mines. Something that would encompass every single emotion that was running through his head. Anger. Betrayal. Restlessness. Anxiety. He'd never admit it to anyone, but he was damned worried about his sister and what could be happening to her at this very moment.<p>

A cold chill swept over him, and he was sure that wasn't because of the sun retreating behind the hills.

While his emotional state was roiling over like a boiling kettle, his physical state was anything but, at least to the untrained eye.

He hated to admit it, but he was really feeling the blood loss at this point. Some of the wounds had stopped bleeding, but the other, deeper, wounds had torn open in his journey. There was a squishy sound as he walked, meaning that some of the blood had seeped into his shoes and had yet to dry.

Sweat dewed on his brow, though he didn't bother wiping it away. The sand was loose underneath his feet, deeper in this area than in the tightly packed areas around his home. He lost his footing a few times - even tripped - and was glad that no one was there to see him. No doubt they'd laugh their asses off.

He kept going, though. Lizard saw the ending of this, and it pushed him on. Or, it could be the beginning of something else. Papa wouldn't take this lying down. More likely than not, it would start a battle between clans, if their numbers survived this day. He knew that the old man was going in with guns blazing. They had taken one of their own. _Kidnapped_ his sweet little girl. There would be no boundaries Jupe wouldn't cross to get her back. As soon as Ruby was safely out of the way, Lizard had no idea what would happen next, and that excited him as well as put a sharp nudge of dread through his stomach.

Whatever happened, he hoped it involved his knife going through some poor bastard's gut, though.

If it was Hades himself, well, that was a plus.

The sun was moving slowly but surely behind the hills that corralled his home. He knew there was a good bit of daylight left, but hopefully they'd all be out before nighttime claimed them. It was no good to be on someone else's turf at night. The thought of it caused Lizard to groan.

_Well, _he thought wryly, unable to help himself, _at least the dark'll hide Hades' ugly mug._

He wondered what the small rescue party was doing at this moment. With Jupiter's leadership, anything was possible. The man had an knack for strategy, after all.

Lizard kept walking. His vision was a tad blurry, but he was able to see the faint outline of the hills that housed the mines in which Hades' clan dwelled. _Bout damn time._

He knew he wasn't up to climbing, knew he'd probably fall off as soon as he got so high up that falling would be fatal. He might be reckless, but he wasn't stupid. There was an entrance on ground level, if he could find it. Some of the older mutants - Grabber for one, blind bastard that he was - couldn't risk climbing down from the higher levels. Hades, who hardly ever left the mines, wasn't the most limber of individuals, and preferred leaving from the base of the mines. Sure, there were ledges and things that they perched on and scoped out the place, but to get down to land, that was their only route.

Lizard stalked around the bend of the hill. After some searching, he found the battered and rickety looking door that closed up the main ground entrance. He stepped forward, clenching the hilt of one of his knives in his hands. Alert as he could be in his condition, he tried his best to use his hearing to his advantage.

He heard it, then.

Nothing major. Anyone else would have missed it. A brief stirring of the rocks near the base of the hills. Felt like Hades - or one of his stupid lackey offspring - had decided to bring the fight to him. Lizard supposed that was good, after all. Less work for him to do.

Turning sharply, the door to his left side, he readied his knife and said, "Come on out, then! Ain't no reason to hide! Chameleon, righ'?"

Pluto lumbered out from behind the large cropping of rock.

Lizard lowered his knife. Annoyance powered his movements. "The hell you doin' here, ya big lug? You supposed to be - "

"Liz..." Pluto interrupted him, an odd thing for him to do. Underneath the dopey expression in his eyes, he looked concerned. "What...doin'...here?"

Lizard growled. He really felt like throwing the knife straight at Pluto, but he controlled the urge. After all, it wasn't Pluto he was mad at, it was Hades. "Findin' Ruby!"

"Liz...you hurt." Pluto raised a mammoth fist and pointed at him. "Can't...Ruby..."

"I _can_!" he shouted in protest. "I _can_! Don't you tell me what I can and can't do!" Lizard slapped his forehead, fingers threatening to dig into his eye sockets. The worn familiarity of his gloved hands eased him for some reason. "Where's everyone else, Pluto?"

"Up..." Pluto turned around completely, pointing up in the hills. "Papa...say...best...way."

"Yeah?" Lizard questioned. Well, he'd show them what was right. _Even if Pop has a good point. _"Let's go in, Pluto."

"Pop...say...stay here...guard..."

Lizard wanted to throttle him. Usually he was gung-ho to do whatever Lizard wanted him to, but when Papa gave the order, it was always Papa over Lizard.

"Listen, can't you - "

A banging sound cut him off, followed by a sharp shriek. Lizard whipped around, holding the knife in his hands, and saw what had caused the echoing, eerie sound. The door had been slammed open, almost to the point of splintering the wood of the door even further, and out of the cavern came stumbling a young woman. The only thing that distinguished her as a woman was her long hair and feminine features, her body was covered with an army uniform, disguising any form of a body she might have. Her skin was dark, her hair darker, and she was covered in muck, grime, and blood.

On her back was Ruby.

Lizard, for once, was speechless. Motionless. His eyes widened with recognition as soon as they locked on his sister's. Ruby opened her mouth to speak, but was cut off when a large, meaty hand grabbed the mystery woman's collar and tried to pull her back. She fought, though, fought for the escape she could see.

The intensity of the moment was what moved Lizard into action. He screamed something - Ruby's name? - and hurled his knife. The blade landed true, striking Hades' hand with a long practiced precision. He howled in pain and let the woman go. She was bleeding - had he hit her as well? - and then fell to the sand, sprawling in an uncomfortable position and, as a result, Ruby was thrown from her back, landing just a bit in front of her.

"Lizard!" Hades growled. It sounded more animalistic than human. He tried to step forward, ripping the knife out of his hand, and then pointing it at the other mutant. "D'ya know what you jus' did, boy?"

"What? Hurt ya hand, did I?" Lizard sneered. "Shoulda aimed for your throat, you fuckin' - "

"You jus' started somethin'," Hades continued. "Ain't no goin' back from - "

"You the one who took my sis' to _breed _with!" he shouted, going for his spiked belt. Hades reached for his own belt and produced a rusty meat cleaver. He stepped forward, coming out of the mine and closer to Lizard. Murder was in his eyes.

A cruel smirk overtook Hades' mouth. "You too injured from before. Could finish ya now. No problem."

Lizard snarled at him, whipping the spike belt from his waist and preparing himself. He might be injured, might be close to death himself, but he would not go down without a fight.

Pluto then decided to make his presence known. How Hades had gone so long without noticing someone as large as Pluto was beyond Lizard. _Damned stupid, _he thought.

"Liz!" Pluto gave a concerned yelp as he maneuvered himself in front of Lizard. It was something that pissed Lizard off, but what could he do about it? No one could actually move a determined Pluto without spraining something.

Only now did Lizard notice the ax dragging in the sand behind him. Pluto lifted it with no problem whatsoever, with only one hand, and faced Hades with no sense of fear and no sense of that usual innocence that surrounded him. He knew who this was. This was the man that had possibly orchestrated the kidnapping of his sister. That pushed her and his brother off a cliff. Nearly killed them. Lizard felt a strange sort of pride towards the large man, for recognizing the situation and rising to the occasion.

A roar erupted from Pluto's mouth as he charged forward. Hades knew that he was outnumbered - though, Lizard's actual condition made him less than one man, at this point - and outmuscled and underarmed. Hades might have the same kind of supernatural strength that Pluto had, but he was older and slower. Pluto was young and strong and spry. And he _definitely _knew how to handle that ax.

The two stared at each other for a moment - a long, agonizing moment.

Ruby was trying to get to her feet, obviously a little disoriented from the fall. Her shaky fingers clenched her knees, and then she looked back to the fallen soldier. "Hey..."

Hades lurched for her, his grubby fingers grasping around one of the young woman's boots. Still unconscious, she didn't move, but Ruby screamed for her, her tiny hands grabbing the bulk of her uniform top and pulling. Hades knew that he was outmanned and was at least going to leave with a prize. Lizard felt sick to his stomach.

Pluto charged forward, waving his ax at Hades as if trying to scare him away. Ruby screamed as she hung on to the woman for dear life.

This bothered Lizard, more than usual. He wasn't sure why, but he did not want Hades to get his dirty paws on this woman, the woman who saved his sister.

He lashed out with his spiked belt, utilizing it as a whip and allowing it to encircle the entirety of Hades' shoulder joint. With a pull, the spikes set in, piercing flesh and causing Hades to let go of the soldier with a pained shout. He tried to disengage the spikes from his shoulder, using his large hand to wrap around the spiked strip. He pulled, causing blood to seep from the wounds on his shoulder and the developing one on his hands.

"Lizard!" his father's voice came, concern and anger wrapped into one.

Lizard didn't look back, but he was relieved that his father had decided to join the party, at least. He was in what seemed like a game of tug-of-war, one that he was losing at the moment. He damned his weakness, damned his limbs for not functioning properly, damned the blood loss that crippled him so. He grit his teeth and growled as he tried desperately to retrieve his spiked belt from Hades' grip.

Hades, seeing the rival clansmen, gave one final tug and relieved Lizard of his beloved weapon. Doing this, he let go of the woman, and Ruby was able to pull her further away from her would-be kidnapper. His sister's face was more fierce than Lizard had ever remembered seeing. She glared down Hades, and was only interrupted when Pluto came forward and enveloped the small girl and the soldier in his large arms, lifting them both easily.

Jupiter had reached them at this point, followed by the rest of the members of the rescue party. Lizard idly wondered how his pop knew to bring everyone down here, where Ruby had clearly been found. One look at Pluto's belt told him everything he needed to know: walkie. Of course.

"Hades," Jupiter warned.

"Why, hey, ol' Jupe," Hades greeted jovially. "What brings you 'ere?"

Jupiter raised his shotgun to Hades, level with his head. "You know why."

"Do I? _Naw_. I ain't got no idea...why," he said, trailing off as he looked at the two women currently in Pluto's strong grasp. He smiled.

"I'll tell you this once," Jupiter said, adjusting the gun. "You stay away from my family. I won't be so generous next time."

"Pop!" Lizard protested, fighting to stay on his feet. "You know he'll...do it again! He...don't care! He..."

Jupiter looked at him. "You'll understand, son."

"We have to...attack...now! Our...only...chance...!"

"You're almost dead," Jupiter snapped. He the tore his gaze from Lizard and lifted his eyes to Hades. "Take this as a kindness."

Hades smirked sinisterly. "Of course."

"Get outta my sight before I change my mind."

Hades shrugged. "I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss me." He held Lizard's spiked belt in his hands, twirling it over in his large, meaty hands. "I think I'll keep this 'un. In case you come back."

With one last look at all of them, Hades retreated into the mines, slamming the tattered door behind him.

"Papa...what...the...hell..." Lizard spluttered, but his words felt sluggish and strained, as if he were trying to speak around a mouthful of food. "He's gonna...gonna..."

Jupiter glared sharply at his son. "It's all 'bout the timing, boy," he scolded. "If we were to fight now, we'd lose more than we'd gain. Ruby's here, and then look at you. We need to be at our full strength when we come back."

"He...was 'lone, Pop..." Lizard insisted, though the idea that they were eventually coming back to deal with it was a comforting one.

Jupiter pointed a singular finger to the tops of the hills. Lizard's gaze followed and saw a figure standing right in line with the sun. He was tall and slender, though the sun blotted out any distinguishable features. He figured it was Chameleon.

"Best for us to leave," Jupiter said. He gave Pluto a look. The larger mutant let down Ruby, allowing her small feet to come into contact with the sand. She looked as if she were fighting against hugging her father, but she didn't, knowing that would make him look weak in front of his enemies. Her small hands twisted in her large shirt. "C'mon, Rube," he said, holding out a hand. Jupiter looked up at Pluto, "I'll take the girl." He nodded at the soldier. "Lizard's gonna need your help comin' home."

"I don't need no one's help!" Lizard exclaimed, then swayed on the spot. Pluto put a large hand on his shoulder and he shrugged as if to remove it. Though it was a weak motion, Pluto took his hand from his shoulder.

Pluto handed the girl over to Jupiter, who slung her over one shoulder and started to move. Goggle took up position in front of Jupiter, while Cyst lingered behind Pluto and Lizard, taking up the rear. The group of them started to head back to the test village, but Lizard could find no comfort in that, for some reason. Not only because of Hades, but...because of something else...

"Look!" he called, remembering his observation from before. The dark haired girl's uniform seemed like a beacon, even in the setting sun. "That girl...she's military! What we gonna do now...that they've sent the army!"

"She...save...Rube...Pop," Pluto blurted out. Now, that was weird, getting input from Pluto without directly asking for it.

Lizard noticed that his father's shoulders tensed. His honor was warring with his sense of self-preservation, but eventually he said, "We let 'er explain for herself when she wakes up." He adjusted the girl on his shoulder, as if emphasizing his point. "Anyway, we owe her a debt for what she's done for us."

Lizard couldn't argue with his father's logic, but...that didn't mean he liked it. Just seeing that army uniform set his teeth on edge.

He found himself staring at this woman, the woman who had saved his sister's life. He remembered her appearance vividly, as short as it was - more specifically, her eyes. Dark and large in her face, terror fighting with rationality. Though she might pose a problem later, he had no doubt that she had won his father's favor just by saving his daughter.

Though grateful himself for the fact that she had saved Ruby, Lizard didn't like the fact that the military were so close. As far as he was concerned, this woman might have a second agenda that they didn't know about.

_But if she had another agenda, _a voice whispered across the back of his mind, _why was she captured by Hades?_

The answer was a clear one: for breeding.

Lizard tried to shrug off the cold that had seeped over him, one that he was sure was due to blood loss and not due to the fact that he felt sorry for anyone. Now that would be a problem, right there.

"You 'kay, Lizard?" Ruby asked, her timid voice breaking the deafening silence around them.

"Fine," he said, though his voice was a bit weaker than he'd like. Pluto reached out to grasp his shoulder, but pulled his hand back at the last second. _Good_, he thought.

Though, as they walked toward their home, Lizard couldn't be sure if he was fine or not - not just because of the blood loss, but because he kept stealing glimpses of that soldier's dark hair as his father carried her to the test village.

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><p><em><strong>End Chapter Ten.<strong>_


	11. Swallowed By Sand

_**Disclaimer: **__I don't own The Hills Have Eyes._

_Thanks so much to __**Berry's Ambitions**__ for your kind review! I appreciate it very much! Now, I hope that this chapter is up to par! It was kind of painful to write, to be honest. Lol. Thanks so much for reading!_

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><p><strong>Edge<br>****Chapter Eleven: Swallowed By Sand**

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><p><em>"Ha ha! David, don't tell me you haven't rode a horse before?"<em>

_"Don't make fun of me! Haven't you seen what they can do - "_

_"Are you __**scared**__?"_

_"Psh, no, no - ah! Don't bite me, horse!"_

_A giggle, a flash of blonde hair. "Come on. Jose's just playing around.."_

_"Fine...but only for you, Lila."_

Napoleon cracked his eyes open, an aching forming in his entire being. He was remiss to be pulled from the memory, dreamlike in its quality as it played across his unconscious mind, but he was nonetheless. Groaning, he tried to pull himself to his feet, hands shaky as they attempted to support his slim frame.

He remembered people saying, "Everything hurts," and now he knew what they were talking about.

Training to be a soldier was one thing. Being in an actual battle...against these..._creatures_ was another.

The sun was shrinking behind the hills, darkening the already frightening landscape. For a moment, he wasn't sure about what happened or his location or anything like that, and then in came back, piece by piece, like a puzzle.

The mutants had ambushed them. _Mutants_, that could be the only word used to describe such creatures, such inhuman-seeming things. People - and he used the term _people _as roughly as he could - that dwelled in the hills and made their lives there. If he could even call that living. Cold-hearted monsters, the lot of them. He did not care if he was making a broad generalization. From what he had seen in his short time in the hills, these people were far past redemption, far past his pity. They had killed his comrades, one by one, as if they were mere pedestrians rather than armed soldiers.

He remembered the sheer and utter terror as he saw Missy ripped away from him, the coldness that had gone over him when he learned what could possibly be her fate, the shock when he saw Spitter's neck split open as if it were protected with nothing but tissue paper.

Memories flashed through his mind, interspersing with each other seamlessly. He was surprised at this, figuring that the scrambling of his brain would have done something to his memory bank, but he supposed he was wrong.

Groaning, he rolled over on his back and glanced up at the quickly darkening sky. To his left, the cliff jutted up a few feet - okay, more than a few feet. It would take someone as skilled as Delmar or Stump to make the climb back up to the top, for they were the only ones skilled enough to go without ropes...

A sharp pang in his chest jarred him as their names crossed his mind.

Napoleon squinted his eyes shut, hating himself even more for being as useful as a rag doll in the actual fight. Things had not been in their favor. Even though they had those hill-dwellers outnumbered, they were clearly skilled. Their raw, animal instinct trumping the clinical and practiced moves the soldiers had been taught in training.

That large one seemed to be the leader. Then, flanked by a mutant with a cleaver and a woman with a bow and quiver of crudely made arrows, they made their purpose painfully obvious. Napoleon felt his head start to hurt just thinking about it.

They had attacked. Bullets would last only so long, not to mention these things were damn hard to hit when they were moving. The mutants were also good at hiding behind things, blending into the surroundings as seamlessly as if they were made of rock themselves. They had managed to take the cleaver wielding one down only when he made the mistake of appearing behind Crank hacking down with his knife. The bullets then tore through him, as if fueled by the soldiers' hatred.

Distracted and concerned about Crank's health, Delmar had turned around, only to be shot with an arrow in the back. Napoleon had assumed it had struck neatly into one of his lungs because Delmar was down in a matter of seconds, gasping for breath and holding his chest. The second struck home as well, putting him down like he was an animal.

This course of events put Crank in a blind rage. He started shooting about, crazed, eyes wheeling, screaming for his fallen comrade. This was his mistake. He did not see the bigger mutant until it was too late, and his head was caved in by one massive blow with a nearby rock.

Napoleon had started thinking then. He had fired all his bullets into the one they had already killed, and trying to take out the archer, who scampered up to the highest rock around as soon as the fight broke out. He looked up, searching for the aforementioned mutant, glancing at her just as she peeked over a rock, stretching an arrow back expertly.

The target being Stump, who was in the process of taking cover behind a nearby rock.

The name of his friend was hardly out of his mouth when the arrow hit him squarely in the chest, cutting through bone and muscle. Claiming his heart. Killing him instantly.

Napoleon felt like vomiting. They had been slaughtered as if they were cattle, caged in and ready to be killed for meat. He had looked desperately for the one remaining member of their team, hoping beyond all hope that she was still standing.

And she was, using the last of her bullets to put lead into the archer. The woman screamed, rocking her head back, and leapt down from her perch as if she were a cat. Blood gushed from a wound on her upper thigh. Good. Maybe Amber got an artery. The mutant, displaying remarkable resilience, cocked an arrow, aiming directly for Amber's head just as the monstrous leader was charging at Napoleon.

Saving both himself and Amber, Napoleon had rushed out of the grasping path of the leader's hands. He knocked into her, messing up the archer's aim in the process, and Amber's helmet had fallen off, revealing her messy blonde hair, coming out of its usual ponytail and falling around her face in tangled waves.

The grin that came over the large mutant was terrifying as he made the connection.

He had looked up at the archer at that moment, eyes glittering, and the first arrow hit Amber squarely in the back. She had paused, stunned, reaching for the arrow that pierced her and trying to get it out.

He had shouted her name, his voice cracking in several places, and paused in horror.

The second arrow hit her just under her shoulder blade...so close to her lung...

And she was down.

In his panic, he had not seen her breathing. He felt as if things were going in slow motion as he watched Amber's still form, unmoving and crumpled at his feet. No breath to indicate her life. Feeling a blind rage much like Crank had earlier, Napoleon had charged then, aiming to take the leader down.

Easily, the head mutant had grasped his thin shoulders and hurled him off the side of the cliff.

Napoleon had remembered the feel of flying, and then falling. He knew he was going to die, he just knew it. The airborne moment was fleeting, and he felt himself crashing into the ground, losing consciousness just moments after.

The ground, Napoleon now realized, that wasn't technically the ground.

He managed to get himself to his feet. The lone survivor of his unit.

There was a certain hollowness he felt as he gazed out at the darkening desert.

_I should be dead._

And he wanted to be, more than anything.

As Napoleon glanced down at the land below, he grasped his dogtags and ran his finger over the little wooden horse that nested between them.

Then, something caught his eye.

A flash of movement, down below. A woman, being chased by a man. A woman that looked all too familiar...

"_Missy_!" he gasped under his breath.

And there she was, carrying a small girl on her shoulders, escaping from the very man that had killed his friends. She fell just after another figure threw something at the leader. He almost cried out her name, but figured that would get him killed.

Somehow, just seeing Missy fight like that, reestablished the sudden, burning desire to live.

More figures came. There was a small, wiry one; one with tangled long hair; one with a bowler hat; one as large as the man who had almost killed Napoleon; a man with a brace supporting his head and neck...

They started exchanging words. Napoleon had no idea what they were saying, though he could tell it wasn't friendly. There was a scuffle in which the large mutant leader tried to take back Missy, and the little girl desperately tried to pull her back. It all ended when the large mutant that was on the more heavily numbered side pulled them both back, and...was that an _ax _he was wielding?

Things escalated, and then calmed down, reminding him vaguely of how brutal an ocean could be and then transform into something completely tranquil. Napoleon could hardly make out anything else but clearly these people had hatred for one another. The large mutant retreated back into the hill, while the other ones looked at each other in questioning.

The scraggly haired one pointed to the exact area where Napoleon was standing. He stiffened, but did not move. They weren't shouting at him or coming to kill him, so maybe they weren't worried about him, since he'd be dead soon anyway.

After a shuffling of bodies, Missy's limp form was handed to the wild haired man, and then they were leaving...

_Wait,_ Napoleon thought abruptly, _leaving?_

He had no idea where they were going. A worry struck him so deeply in his chest that it felt like that mutant woman had landed an arrow there. Were they going to do with Missy what that colonel said? Were these new set of people just as bad as the ones that lived where Napoleon now stood?

He knew one thing. He could not let this happen. He could not let this take place. He had lost all of his friends in the span of only a few hours, and Missy was the only one left. A fierce protectiveness stole over him.

He would save her.

First, though, he had to get _down _from here.

The way down was steep, but he could make out the few places that would be safe if used for handholds and footholds. He knew instinctively that he had to leave from here before dark fell. If he spent a night out here, he could very well die of exposure or something equally as horrifying. Or, the mutants could spot him and then kill him.

Then there would be no hope for Missy.

That lone thought was what gave Napoleon the drive to head down the cliff.

It was shaky going at first. After all, it was a very long way down and Napoleon was by no means an experienced climber. His knees felt like jello as he dropped himself down onto the next ledge, which was surprisingly large and held his weight nicely, and also allowed his hands to be free for a moment. Taking a few deep breaths, he gazed down.

_One step forward, two steps back comes to mind,_ he thought achingly.

Though he had made it a few feet down, the path to get to the ground was awfully steep, and he hated that he kept imagining himself falling, crushing his head on the rocks below. Millions of images from movies flashed through his mind. Headshot after headshot after headshot. It was going to happen to him, it was going to happen to him -

Napoleon slapped himself across the face hard enough to knock some sense into his brain. The scrambling, manic thoughts were not going to get him down this cliff. They were not going to save Missy.

They were not going to get him back to Lila.

The horse around his neck seemed to weigh more than usual as he lowered himself down the edge of his current perch. His feet scrambled for a foothold and then found one. He tested it a few times, making sure it was stable, before moving his hands down to grip at the rocks beneath his original position. His breath was coming out in desperate pants, and he tried to calm himself yet again.

His progress was slow, but still, it was progress. Ledge after ledge, handhold after handhold, prayer after prayer, he stayed true to his mission to get down the ledge. It seemed impossible, but eventually the ground seemed closer and he could feel the fading heat rising from the earth below.

_So close...so, so close..._

Napoleon hadn't realized he was so near the ground until he glanced down, being able to see a close up of the sand for the first time in what seemed like an eternity. As if to make a comparison to where he once was, he looked up and saw where he had first woken up after the massacre, yards and yards above him. He exhaled shakily, blowing his bangs out of his face.

A few more inches, just a few more inches.

And he dropped.

He fell for only a few seconds, landing on his feet but nearly twisting his ankle in the process. Familiar stabbings of pain sounded around the bones of his foot. Though, the sand felt like a granted wish as it closed around his boots. Napoleon threw his arms out as if they were wings, to steady himself.

A relieved shudder passed over him.

_"Good job, David! Jose seems to like you."_

_"Get...me...down...from...here!"_

_"But it looks like you two are bonding!"_

_"If this is your definition of bonding, then you need a new dictionary!"_

Napoleon was motivated by the rest of the memory flooding back from before. He remembered the smell of Lila's shampoo - cucumber and mint - and the glint of her gray eyes when she found out something particularly interesting. He remembered the feel of her loose waves of blonde hair, soft beneath his fingers. That drawling Southern accent of hers...

And he missed her more than anything in the world.

Steely determination setting into his bones, he continued walking. He made his way around to where he saw the scuffle from before, noting the slight pattern of blood here and there. The door leading inside to what looked like a series of mines was still shut, and Napoleon could just feel the foreboding sense of peril coming from behind it.

The desert wind wasn't blustery enough to wipe away their tracks. Many sets of footprints led away from the door, and off into the desert. Some were defined in their tracks, while there were a set of dragging footsteps, interspersed with droplets of blood mixing with the sand. A chill wove its way into Napoleon's spine.

He glanced around, looking for some form of a weapon, and he saw that there was a wooden board laid haphazardly against a far cliff wall. Quietly, he moved towards it and grasped it in his hands. It had a good weight, and felt like it was supposed to be used for that purpose.

Napoleon's eyes found the trail of footprints. All the horrors aside, luck was with him at this particular moment. The moon was lifting into the darkening sky and he saw it was full; its light would be enough to illuminate the entire plane of desert as he walked.

With no further reason to delay, he set off.

_"You'll come back soon, right?"_

_"You bet."_

Napoleon intended on keeping his promise.

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><p><em><strong>End Chapter Eleven.<strong>_


	12. With a Clouded Mind

_**Disclaimer: **__I don't own The Hills Have Eyes._

_Okay! Here's the latest chapter of this little fic of mine, and I'm sorry it's taken so long! Thanks so much to __**Berry's Ambitions**__ and __**Merciless Angels Never Cry**__ for their words of support! It really means a lot that people are liking this fic, so I hope that everyone enjoys this next chapter! Thanks so much for reading!_

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><p><strong>Edge<br>****Chapter Twelve: With a Clouded Mind**

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><p><em>This, <em>Missy thought as she stirred into consciousness, _is starting to get old._

Her head was hurting worse than it had the last time she woke up in an unfamiliar set of surroundings. Most likely because she'd gotten hit in the head more times in one day than she had in the past year. She was certainly screwed if she had a concussion. Missy inhaled deeply, finding that it hurt her to do so. She wasn't sure when she got that kind of injury, but it definitely didn't help her odds.

She allowed herself one more moment before she decided to open her eyes and familiarize herself with her current surroundings.

Brightness greeted her.

The light was jarring, stabbing into her eyes as if offended by her presence. She placed a hand over her eyes, finding with a jolt of surprise that she was able to do so. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust, and then she was able to make out her surroundings. A modest house, faded wallpaper adorning the place. Worn furniture. A well-used quilt beneath her. Sweltering heat that enveloped her as if she were wrapped in said quilt. The stagnant air wasn't even being dispersed by a fan.

Missy stifled a sneeze as dust floated around her. She squeezed her eyes shut and ran a hand over her face, only to find that she was missing the large, heavy covering of her army uniform. She still had the pants on, but the top was taken and slung over a random chair in the corner that was pulled up to a writing desk. It was shocking, but not unwelcome. Anything to combat the heat.

_At least I had a tanktop on underneath, _she thought, seeing the very vague bright side.

Another shocking development was that her hands weren't bound. She wasn't tied up to the bed either. Her feet and hands were free, and she decided to use this freedom to explore.

She moved to stand, but as soon as her feet connected with the ground, she wobbled. One of her hands shot out and grasped the nightstand, bracing herself for what would have been an awful fall. Missy realized she had been fine, gravity wise, until she stood up. Maybe she really did have a concussion or something like that.

Definitely not a good situation.

In her haste to save herself from falling, she had knocked over a few trinkets that had littered the nightstand. A picture frame, a paper weight, things like that. They clattered to the floor, nearly falling onto her feet and causing a racket that no doubt gave away her position.

She tensed as her heart rate skyrocketed. The paper weight rolled and stopped as it hit her sock-clad toes.

The soldier barely had time to think, _They took off my shoes?_ before the door to the room swung open.

Immediately, her eyes swept the room for a weapon. Instincts kicking in, she grabbed the nearest - and girliest - item of defense she could.

The bedside lamp.

Jerking the cord out of the wall, she felt a strange growl emitting from her chest as she faced the person in the doorway. He was massive, filling the entire doorway with his bulk. A strange flash of memory - a battered and beaten, wiry and wobbling character throwing a knife - briefly occluded her vision before she focused back on the matter at hand.

"Get," she snarled, "away from me!"

Her voice was raspy. It was then she realized she was dreadfully thirsty. Her chest heaved with the exertion her body was under.

The character in the door tilted his head to the side. She couldn't make out his features, just that his shadow was massive and foreboding. If he were to try to attack her, she wouldn't have much of a chance, despite her abilities. Her training as a soldier meant nothing if her body wasn't in complete, perfect working condition.

He - and she assumed it was a 'he' - didn't move. Only stared at her with an interest that surprised her. She remembered the feel of the mines, of the complete and utter urgency with which the people acted. In this place, filled with light and space, it was hard to imagine these people being anything remotely alike one another.

"We...need...lamp..." the figure spoke.

Missy paused, sure her eyes were so large they looked comical. What did that...thing just say? They needed the lamp? The hell?

"Lamp...light..."

She looked incredulously at the lamp in her hands, wondering just how much her surroundings had indeed changed in the matter of...well, she had no idea how long it had been since her escape from the mines, but it felt like both a second and an eternity.

Missy hadn't realized how much she had dropped her guard until the figure approached her, coming into the light in the room. She tensed, like a cat ready to spring, but as soon as the figure saw this he backed off instead of forcing himself on her.

What...kind of place...what kind of _person _was this?

She was able to get a good look at him, not recognizing him at all. So tall his head nearly scraped the top of the doorway, he was looking at her with a gentle - albeit wary - gaze. It was kind of comical, how someone so large and potentially deadly could look that way when faced with someone so much smaller and physically weaker than they.

"No hurt..." he said, holding his hands out in front of him. "No hurt."

Cocking her head to the side, Missy looked at him skeptically, as if she would look at Clyde if she caught him telling a story.

_Clyde, _she thought, a pang of loneliness stabbing her. She missed him so much she felt physical pain.

"Pluto," a voice called out, thick with authority. This voice caused Missy to stand at attention, almost as if she were still answering to Sarge. Nothing else had to be said, that one utterance of his name was enough to get the larger man to step down.

Trying to force everything from the back of her mind, Missy looked forward to see that there was a man standing in the doorway, looking authoritative as well as fatherly at the same time. It was an odd contrast, but one that Missy knew well. Her father had looked that way at her often.

She wondered if she would get to see her father again.

She shook her head before focusing all her attention on the man that had invaded the doorway where the larger man - Pluto, she guessed - once stood. He was thin. Scraggly would be the operative word for his appearance. Wild, uncombed hair, windswept and dark, streaked with the tiniest hints of gray, adorned his head. He wore a long, duster-like coat, in which he shoved his hands.

_Leader_ was the word that crossed Missy's mind automatically.

"My son don't know how intimidating he can be," the man spoke, his voice rough and gravelly. His eyes, sharp as a hawk's, darted down to where Missy still held the lamp in her vise-like grip. "Ain't no need for that, girl," he said, chuckling. "We don't mean no harm."

Dark eyes narrowed in response. Though not giving off any sinister air - not at all like that _monster_ that dwelled in the mines - this man had to be stupid to think that she'd trust them that quickly. Not after what she had gone through. Not after what had almost happened to her.

An involuntary shudder passed over her. Hating to be seen as weak, Missy straightened herself simultaneously, as if to hide the reaction.

The man nodded, as if in understanding. "We were waiting for you to get up," he continued. "I got a few questions I'd like to have answered, if you don't mind."

Missy didn't budge.

"You can bring that lamp with you, if you like," he offered, as if that were the most cordial thing to do. If Missy wasn't so paranoid about dying, she'd have thought he was teasing. And she might have laughed at him in response.

Stubborn to the core, Missy placed the lamp down on the table before meeting the leader's eyes with her own.

And he started to _laugh_.

She narrowed her eyes even further, unaware that that was even possible.

He stopped, but a grin was still on his face. Despite his relaxed nature, there was a strange set to his shoulders, as if something was distressing him greatly. Missy wondered what that could be, but decided against asking. "You're a quiet one."

"So I've been told," she replied, not missing a beat.

His lips twitched. "I'm Jupiter. This is my son, Pluto. Everyone else is in the next room. We'd like you to answer some questions to...ease our minds."

"And then you're going to kill me."

Jupiter looked at her as if she was being ridiculous. His eyes were soft in his weathered face, and something about them made Missy feel slightly at ease. "No one's killing you."

Missy clenched a fist, wishing for a knife to protect herself. "Why's that?"

"You saved my daughter."

And it all came crashing back.

The small girl, fitting so easily on her shoulders. Racing for their lives. Chased by a monster in every sense of the word. A knife, whizzing past her cheek - as this image floated by her, she raised her fingers to her face, tracing perfect seam of the cut - and a man calling out a name...what name was it?

"That should be reason enough," Jupiter spoke again.

Missy gave a little nod. If anything, this man seemed to know the meaning of honor, but that didn't mean she was going to let her guard down at all. That would be stupid, contraindicative of her training.

Pluto left the room, lumbering along in a strangely endearing way. Missy fought the urge to smile. When she realized this, she mused that it was probably from being hit on the head one too many times. She watched as Jupiter left after him, graceful even in such a casual setting. Strangely graceful, for such a ragged, rough seeming individual.

Her thoughts racing through her head, Missy followed with reluctance seeping into her bones.

Stepping through the doorway of her small room and into the hallway was something akin to stepping into a dream. Missy felt as if her feet were moving of their own accord, unaffected by any of her attempts to stall them. She followed the two mutants into a larger room, where there was a large gathering of others. Her dark eyes looked over them, one by one. These figures were all looking the same direction, unperturbed by her presence.

A man with a grotesquely elongated skull, sitting in a wheelchair and looking very uncomfortable.

A bald woman crouched in the corner, leaning over something.

A man with a bowler hat, curled fist pressed against his chin.

A man with growths on his face, head held up by some sort of metal device.

The last, a thin girl with large brown eyes, two children pressed against her legs. A name bubbled into her mind. _Ruby. _Yes, that was her name, this girl she had helped.

It looked like she wasn't the elephant in the room, after all

She stood in the doorway, watched as Jupiter walked to the corner where the woman was crouched near. He leaned over and asked her something, the words too quiet and hushed to be picked up by Missy's ears. It was strange, seeing how respectful of her the leader was. In a way, everything about this clan was strange. She remembered the innate fear Chameleon had displayed when confronted about his father.

There was none of that here.

Pluto stood furthest away, strangely reticent of whatever it was that was going on. He was just a few feet ahead of her, to the right. He tugged on his sleeves every few minutes or so, looking oddly childlike.

This whole situation was..._strange_.

She felt like an outsider. Invisible. Only there to observe, nothing more. It seemed that her supposed _questioning _was secondary to whatever was going on here.

Missy hadn't realized she was stepping forward until everyone turned to stare at her. Ruby faced her, looking at her with the most compassionate gaze she had seen since this whole ordeal started.

"Stay back," the man in the wheelchair wheezed.

She bristled, but before she could say anything in response, Jupiter's voice rang out.

"Stop it," he commanded.

Jupiter looked towards Missy for a second or so before leaning back down over...what looked like a couch? Missy wasn't certain, but now that she was closer she could see a pair of boots dangling over the edge.

The details were becoming more and more apparent. The woman was pressing a cloth down on something - a wound, possibly? Missy watched as Jupiter held the figure's shoulders down against the couch.

A flash - like a movie being played - dazed her momentarily. The images that had passed through her mind before were now clearer, more defined. She remembered the look on the man's face, determined and steely despite the declining state of his health.

Somehow, she knew that _that _was who they were so concerned about.

She watched as the woman removed her hands from their current position, pulling away a blood soaked towel. And that was no exaggeration. The towel plopped to the floor with a sticky, wet sound.

Unable to keep quiet any longer, Missy spoke, "It'll be better if you leave that towel on."

Again, all heads turned to look at her. She was used to this, to people looking at her and expecting answers, and when the man in the wheelchair said, "You don't know what you're talking about...towel like that can't absorb anything."

Missy stepped forward. "By ripping that off, you're ripping off any kind of clotting that's already happened. It might seem unsanitary, but it's the truth."

Silence greeted her; they did not stop staring at her.

"You're sure?" Jupiter asked.

Missy nodded.

"And you're knowledgeable about this? Healing?" he pressed on.

She took a step forward, again firmly placing herself in the spotlight. "Yes."

After a pregnant pause, Jupiter motioned for her to come closer. His eyes were focused, and yet there was something swimming beneath the calm - like a storm waiting to surge forward and consume everything in its grasp.

Missy stepped closer. The woman and Jupiter parted so she could see what - _who_ - they were working on.

Her breath caught in her throat.

The man lying on the couch clearly had seen better days. She could barely tell the color of his hair, coated as it was with blood and plastered to his forehead and neck. There were cuts along his jaw. Rips in his shirt revealed the cuts that corresponded with them. Still bleeding. In some areas, she could see where the wounds had been stitched crudely shut, and then ripped open. His breaths were shallow, shaky, and his eyes were closed, the lids fluttering every now and then. Teeth were clenched in pain, marred lip curled.

"Can you do somethin' to help him?" the woman asked.

Missy approached slowly, looking each of them in the eye before lowering herself into a crouch between them. Her brows furrowed as she looked over the man in front of her. She had no idea when this little rendezvous turned from interrogating her over her ties with the army to helping someone in need, but now her mind was focused on one, all-encompassing thought - helping the injured.

"Do you have any more towels?" she asked. "I'm going to need a knife to get these clothes off. Needle and thread. Lots of bandages. And rubbing alcohol."

Jupiter sent a glance towards one of the members of the clan, passing a thousand words with just that one look. There was the sound of scuffling feet and the shutting of a door seconds later.

While waiting for the necessities, Missy pressed two fingers to the side of his neck, nesting them against his trachea and waiting for the reassuring _thump, thump, thump _of his pulse. It was there - weak, but still there. She moved her hands to press upon one particularly brutal looking wound, trying to stem the blood flow that was steadily trickling from it.

A sharp intake of breath interrupted her thoughts.

With one quick and sweeping motion, she looked up towards the man's face, finding that two piercing blue eyes were staring back at her - piercing, as if seeing straight through her despite the weakened state of their owner.

And - ignoring the weird, nonsensical lurch in her chest - Missy continued working to save him, this man who had been her salvation.

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><p><em><strong>End Chapter Twelve.<strong>_


	13. The Nightingale

_**Disclaimer: **__I don't own The Hills Have Eyes._

_Oh my goodness, I haven't updated this fic since October and now it's May, so... I am so incredibly sorry! School got in the way and I had other fics I was working on. This one just kind of got neglected, unfortunately, but here is the newest chapter. I hope that everyone enjoys this latest update. Thanks so much to **Berry's Ambitions**, **L. Harwell**, and **hunter-strain13** for their kind reviews. I don't know what I'd do without y'all's support. Means so much to me! Now, I guess, on to the latest chapter! Lucky number thirteen!_

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><p><strong>Edge<br>Chapter Thirteen: The Nightingale**

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><p>"Can you hear me?"<p>

The question, firm and focused, mingled with the various other sounds in the area around Missy. Deep breathing, whispers of the uncertain, a strange coughing. They were attempting to lodge in her skull, to distract her, but she was able to tune them out. She had to, or else things would get very sticky, very fast.

His eyes - such a bright blue, it still shocked her - were rolling. Unable to focus, unable to see anything, really, she figured. Missy placed a bloodstained hand on the person's cheek, as if to bring him back to reality. She then called back to one of the other clan members, "What is his name?"

There was a silence that followed, as if they were wondering the significance of this question.

"Lizard," a small voice piped up. Missy figured it was the young girl. _Ruby, _she told herself again, adamantly. _You're tired. Your memory is shot._

"Lizard," Missy tested the name on her tongue, then repeated. "Lizard, can you hear me?"

The sound of his name seemed to garner his attention. His eyes snapped onto her, slightly out of focus, but she knew he saw her. "...th' fuck...you wan'..."

Missy found herself tilting her head to the side, her brow quirking almost automatically. A strange, dry chuckle emitted from who she supposed was Jupiter. It sounded odd, such a light sound dispersing such a serious situation, but Missy heard the underlying tones of cynicism. Despite his apparent trust in her, Jupiter doubted her abilities to save this man.

"Well, your attitude's good, at least," Missy said, though the traces of sarcasm in her voice were unadulterated.

The man now known as Lizard gave a cough. Several specks of blood landed on his bottom lip in the process. "Fuck 'ou."

"I wouldn't say that to the person who's gonna save you," a kind - and new - voice came out of seemingly no where. It was then Missy realized a man was standing next to her, a pile of haphazardly thrown together items in his hands. The towels, bandages, rubbing alcohol, needle and thread, and knife she requested were in a bundle in his arms, along with a new pair of clothes slung over his shoulder.

Missy looked up at him in gratitude. This mutant wore a green bowler hat, which had a dusting of sand around the brim. Scraggly hair hung, windswept, beneath the hat. He was thin, lanky almost, and had two slits where his nose should have been. But, despite all of the differences she noticed off the bat, Missy couldn't stop looking at his eyes. This particular mutant held a strange kind of warmth in them. The gentleness she saw there was something most _humans _would benefit from knowing, so to see it so freely displayed on the face of a person who had every right to feel otherwise was something that shocked as well as fascinated her.

"Thank you..." she trailed off, not realizing she was looking for a name until he gave her one.

"Goggle," he said, his voice soft, and yet gravelly at the same time. He placed the items on the floor next to her and stepped back politely "An' it's no problem."

Lizard gave another cough, and Missy spun to face him, her face no doubt showing the characteristic motherly concern she was so used to feeling. Another painful thought of Clyde followed, and she inhaled shakily.

She removed the hideously bloodstained towel from one of his wounds and watched as only a minimal amount of blood bubbled from it. It was deep, so the lack of blood was a good sign. It was also on his leg, located in a terrifying proximity to his femoral artery; however, it hadn't been severed, as far as she could tell. If it had, she supposed, he would have been dead long ago. She could see the ragged flesh where it had been stitched previously, and then ripped back open. This Lizard character clearly didn't know the definition of _taking it easy._

"Is there any way...do you have a lighter? Or matches?" Missy asked, eyeing the needle. It needed to be sterilized to the best of her abilities before she even started stitching. An infection was the last thing this guy needed.

"We have matches," Jupiter said. Missy could hear him rising from his seat. "Hold on."

Missy nodded, and she heard heavy footsteps walk away from their little gathering. Lizard's eyes fluttered closed for the briefest of moments, and Missy was on him like a hawk, slapping his cheek as gently as she could but hard enough to keep him awake.

"Th'...hell?" he asked weakly, his eyes opening and then settling a very strong glare on her.

"We need to keep you awake," she reasoned.

Lizard started to reply, a half-formed curse, when Jupiter came back, a box of matches in his calloused hand. Missy took the matches from him, nodded in thanks, and then set to work.

She took the knife in one hand and set to cutting off the remnants of Lizard's shirt. It was sticky, full of blood, clinging to him like a second skin. Some of of the blood had dried in the time she was unconscious, obviously, and those areas were crusted and flaky, difficult to run the knife through. Missy looked at him, only to find him staring at her in contempt, his eyes heavy and dangerously close to shutting.

Missy took one of the clean towels and started to wipe the blood from his body. She took another and covered his bare lap, offering a slight promise of privacy in this crowded room. Realizing she needed water to visualize the wounds better, she rose and turned towards the clan. "Is there...any water in this place?"

Her mind was obviously scattered, tired from the exertion and ringing from one too many blows to the head. She should have thought of the matches and water beforehand, but she had forgotten them. The simplest items, she had forgotten. It was enough to put a sour taste in her mouth.

Ruby nodded and was off, slipping around the corner as if she were a cloud of smoke.

Missy then allowed herself to ponder where exactly she was. In the middle of the desert, sure, if her company was any indication. How far was she from the mines? From her comrades? If...if there were any left.

A chill raced down her back.

The small mutant then returned, carrying a basin of water in her thin arms. Her eyes were wide and expressive in her face, hopeful that she was doing her job correctly. "Is this okay?"

Missy nodded, her returning smile warm. "Yes. That's fine. Thank you."

The young girl sat the basin down next to Missy. She reached over to the pile of items brought to her by Goggle and picked up a towel before submerging it into the slightly cloudy water. Wringing it out, she set to cleaning Lizard's skin of the dried blood.

She tried not to scrub too hard, nervous about causing even more trauma to the wounds that were already bad enough to begin with. The blood flow had ceased, it seemed.

"Shit!" She heard Lizard curse as she ran the towel over what she presumed was a sensitive area. She murmured an apology to him, and he growled at her in reply.

The atmosphere around her was tense. Every eye was on her, she felt. It was strange, being the center of attention when she hadn't been in so very long. She found it unwelcome, even now, especially under the circumstances.

As if sensing her discomfort, Jupiter called out, "Let's give the two of them space. Can't help nothing by hanging over them like vultures."

Missy turned and looked to the leader of this small band of mutants, gratitude deep in her gaze. Jupiter gave her a curt nod before walking off, albeit somewhat reluctantly. She couldn't blame him; if it had been her son there, being tended to by some random stranger, she wouldn't have wanted to leave at all. Hell, they'd have probably had to tranquillize her to get her away.

_Clyde... _

She looked down and saw her hands were shaking.

As unfortunate as it would seem, she could not allow herself to think of her son at this moment, not when someone's life was on the line. She had trained herself in matters of distraction, and focused on those methods as she set to work.

These motions were practiced, familiar. She took the rubbing alcohol and poured it into the wounds that were deeper than the others, the wounds that looked to be the worst of all. Lizard clenched his eyes shut and grit his teeth, cursing the world but never her.

It was amazing what a little soap and water could do, she realized. Without being covered it blood, Lizard didn't look nearly as critical as he had been just moments before. That didn't mean his condition was any less severe, of course, but at least she was making progress.

"Lizard," she began softly, "Lizard, focus on my voice, okay?"

Lizard made a grunt of ascension.

"Can you tell me something about yourself?"

Missy knew that, just by being around him in the small capacity that she had been, that he wasn't the type to open up about himself. Especially not to a stranger.

"Ya...don' care...'bout me..."

Missy set a wry look upon him. "If I didn't care, why would I be doing this?"

"Pop...'ll kill you."

This caused her to smile. It was faint and all-knowing, though she felt the slightest twinge of doubt at what Jupiter had told her. He seemed an honorable man - and he did seem legitimately grateful that she saved his daughter - but Missy knew all too well the limits of an individual's kindness.

"What's your favorite color?" she decided to ask, instead of the numerous amount of questions that were now plaguing her already troubled mind.

Lizard laughed - well, it was more of a strangled sound of cynical mirth than it was a genuine laugh, but still, Missy took it for what it was - and flexed his fingers a bit, eyes focusing on them as if he were amazed the blood was gone from him. Amazed that there was a time where blood was not staining his hands.

"Red," he said.

Missy gave him a smile. "Yeah?"

Lizard nodded gruffly. "Don'...see...what that...has...to do...with anythin'."

"Just trying to keep you awake," she reassured. Lizard looked at her with a sense of skepticism that was unsurpassed, but gave a weak shrug. Missy was in awe to see that he could move his body on his own, even now. She attested the fact to the power of one's will. And, by all means, Lizard had a strong one.

This continued for a while. Missy's hands started stitching wounds shut, only after pouring the rubbing alcohol into the wounds - and trying not to be offended at the names Lizard called her - and asking him questions all the while just to keep him from fading from the present.

"Favorite time of year?"

"Winter."

"What do you like about the desert?"

"Quiet..."

"Can you tell me the names of your family?"

"Ruby...Jupiter...Pluto - this is fuckin'...stupid..." he hacked, glaring daggers at her, but Missy remained unperturbed.

Minutes turned into an hour, an hour into two. The questions flowed easily from Missy, who was used to doing such things. It was interesting, hearing his answers, but she stayed focused, body hunched over the particular wound she was closing, nimble fingers working to coax the needle through ragged flesh.

More than once, she looked up to find Lizard staring down at her. It was almost as if he was wondering what manner of woman she was. Never one to shrink away from anyone's gaze, Missy found herself staring back for a few moments before studiously going back to work.

A sigh emitted from Missy as she snipped off the last bit of thread on the last stitch of the last wound. This one was a bit bigger than the rest, spanning the length of his back in a jagged crescent pattern, she hadn't even seen until she told Lizard to turn over. If she had, she would have addressed it first. Then again, it was more shallow than the rest, not as life threatening as the other, deeper, wounds that adorned his legs and arms and stomach.

She placed a comforting hand on his shoulder, feeling his bony shoulder underneath her palm. He was rather wiry, but muscular, she noted as she stared at the contours of his arms and back.

"All done, Lizard."

He shrugged away from her touch. Really, Missy didn't know him from Adam, but she expected nothing less. She handed him his clothes but he told her vehemently that he, "Don't need...your damn help...getting dressed."

She allowed him this, trying not to let his words get the best of her, since he was - after all - still rather wounded despite everything.

Missy turned away, allowing him the appropriate privacy to get dressed. He grunted several times, and she found herself wincing for him. She found herself turning to look at him despite herself. "Are you sure you - "

"Yes," Lizard snapped, and just then he wobbled just slightly. Reflexively, Missy jolted upward and stopped him from tumbling further. He growled at her, still not wanting her help even in his most vulnerable state, and he jerked away from her.

Missy stared at him, fighting the urge to shout at him. Her training, however, would not allow her to spew venom at an injured person, not when he was still so weak.

Lizard eased himself into the chair, his face betraying none of the pain that he was undoubtably feeling. Missy watched him, almost entranced, at his willpower.

"I'll go tell everyone we're done here," she said, looking away to the door through which everyone had left the room.

No answer.

Concerned, Missy looked back at the hot-tempered mutant, only to find him sleeping, the stable rise and fall of chest a promising sign. His breaths looked even. Upon feeling his pulse, she was relieved to find it steady, much stronger than it had been earlier.

_Good, _she thought, proud.

With a faint smile, she backed away from him, not breaking her gaze until she closed the door behind her, a strange sense of hope set deep in her chest.

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><p><em><strong>End Chapter Thirteen.<strong>_


	14. Monsters in Cages

_**Disclaimer:**__ I don't own The Hills Have Eyes. _

_Oh my goodness, has it really been so long since I last updated this fanfic? I just feel so bad for neglecting it. I really hope that y'all enjoy this newest chapter. I really just can't apologize enough for this. Time just got out of hand and everything, but now I'm back and hopefully ready to update more regularly! Thanks so much for sticking with me, and thanks to the reviewers for the last chapter - __**Berry's Ambitions**__, __**Alex**__, __**takara410**__, and __**FerretSong**__. Please enjoy!_

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><p><strong>Edge<strong>  
><strong>Chapter Fourteen: Monsters in Cages<strong>

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><p>The incessant <em>drip, drip, dripping<em> of the water from above him was enough to make Chameleon particularly on edge.

The mutant knew that it was ridiculous to feel that way, knew that nothing productive would come from sitting so precariously on the knife's edge that just one slip would result in blood.

Maybe that water was just magnifying what was really bothering him.

Chameleon tried not to focus on that, tried thinking about other things. His eyes focused on the wall adjacent to where he lay on his bed, arms folded behind his head, feet propped at an angle on the wall in front of him. The bed was carved almost completely out of the rock itself, padded with several old sleeping bags from various other trespassers and nestled underneath a broken window that gave the view of another rock face. It wasn't much of a view, but it allowed fresh air to flow in, and that was all he could ask for in a place such as this.

He tried to shut his eyes, tried to focus on the way the rare breeze would come in through the open window and slightly relieve the tension that was building in his muscles.

And then, a scream would pierce the air, rendering it all moot.

Chameleon closed his eyes as tightly as he could.

It was commonplace to hear screams in the mines. Chameleon had grown up hearing them, had caused a few of his own - but not in the manner that his father preferred. Not in the manner that was going on right now. Gradually, as he had come to understand the ramifications of what was going on, Chameleon began to hardly stomach what was going on, retreating to his room and attempting to find some semblance of normalcy.

Most of the time, it worked.

Except for today.

This day had been particularly maddening for several reasons. Chameleon couldn't put his finger on exactly what started it. The day began normally enough - well, normally enough for the mine mutants. Screams and hunting and capture and pain.

_Normal._ Chameleon felt he should scoff at the word, but he had no idea of what normal life was like outside the mines, other than the glimpses of the Test Village clan. And even from those tiny moments, he could see that things were run very differently from the way they were conducted in the mines.

He could not help but imagine what life must be like in places other than this.

He also could not help but think about that maddening woman from earlier - the one with dark eyes and dark hair and dark temper. She had given him the biggest fight he'd had in a long while, pushing him to his limits before he even realized what was going on. Then again, his heart might not have been into it.

If he were to be honest with himself, his heart hadn't been into this for a long, long while.

Chameleon raised his hand and placed fingertips to his forehead, wincing as he came across a particularly tender spot - the very spot where that maddening dark-haired woman had cracked her skull against his. A slight smile spread across his lips at the memory against his own volition.

In all his life, in all the lives he had taken or had helped take, Chameleon had never met a woman as..._vexing _as that soldier, with her determined stare and her cunning and her guile. It was something that he found himself musing over - the struggle, the capture, the captivation, the escape.

And that one moment of hesitation. That one moment where he had let her go.

The tall mutant hadn't the slightest clue as to what had taken him over in that moment. He knew that his father would come to discipline him sooner or later - unless he had forgotten. Chameleon winced as he heard another scream pierce the relative silence of the mines. After all, he had a new plaything. It was easy to forget the small losses when, in his father's mind, he had gained something even more valuable. One breeder was better than none, and maybe that balanced things out.

And yet...

He had but a glimpse of this new girl as she was dragged through the mines, unconscious, two arrows in her back, barely breathing. She was thin - he could tell that despite the bulky clothes she wore. Her hair was yellow and, mixed with the dirt and grime, it resembled tarnished gold. What skin was exposed was littered with cuts and dried blood.

It was a scene that he had seen far too many times. A group of youths stray into their territory. They take them out. Kill the men unless there is some other use for them around the mines and keep the women. However, Chameleon could think of no other time where the people that had wandered into their turf were as qualified as these soldiers.

Another scream pierced the darkness.

The next breath that Chameleon took was equally as shaky on the way in as it was on the way out. He couldn't help but think of the young blonde woman and how defeated she looked as she was dragged back to one of _the rooms_. They were separate from each of the mutants' own quarters, in their own little corridor. Several rooms were along that particular hallway and - depending on various other factors - were sometimes occupied with up to five women, one to each room.

There was only one occupant now.

The next scream that resonated throughout the minds was blood-curdling. Chameleon physically winced from the sound of it, almost as if it was grating against his bones.

He tried to count the hours since she'd been here, tried to determine just how long she had been suffering. And then he found that task far too distressing - which was selfish of him. How could he even compare the pain of hearing her screams when she was having to physically experience the horrors of that laid beneath the hills?

Chameleon closed his eyes and allowed a few more shaky breaths to consume him.

Again, he found himself remembering the moment in which the girl was dragged by him, limp as a rag doll, almost lifeless, the ragged and uneven breathing the only sign of her life. When he saw the girl at first, he assumed the arrows had mistakenly taken her life - it was always an accident when the females were killed prematurely.

And then she had opened her eyes.

_Blue _was all he could see.

There was something in those eyes that caused him to pause. He hadn't been doing anything in particular at the time, just passing by and trying not to let his father's jubilant howls get to him. He should have known that there was something that made his father treat the loss of the other potential breeder as an afterthought.

_Breeder,_ Chameleon thought, almost cringing at the word and what it implied.

This female was pretty, yes, but in a way different than the dark-haired female. This female was all light colors - yellow and blue and white - and the other was dark hair and dark eyes and dark skin. The two of them contrasted interestingly in Chameleon's mind. The way the dark-haired woman had fought, had escaped, had utterly dumbfounded him. The way the light-haired woman had been dragged, been broken, hurt him almost in a way that felt personal.

_Because you could save her, too._

Chameleon tensed, jolting up and sitting ramrod straight in bed, as soon as the thought crossed his mind. It was such an odd notion, yet it was one that he couldn't escape as soon as it fell along the fringes of his mind.

But...could he?

His father was a wrathful being, one that could snap into a murderous rage at even the mildest provocation. If he found out that Chameleon had helped not one, but two, of his breeders escape, then the results would be...would be...

Chameleon would rather not finish that thought.

Yet, now his fingers twitched at his side, aching to do something. Now that the thought had been presented to him, he felt as if he _had_ to. As if there was no other option but to help that poor, broken thing.

A scream broke through his thoughts. He would have jumped at the suddenness of it, had he not had years of practice being still, of ignoring the worst, of weathering the storm and picking out remnants from the aftermath. Chameleon swallowed, though, unnerved at how the scream morphed into a sob which then gurgled out altogether, and then that was followed by his father's warped laughter, and more pounding against the walls.

"Pop must really like tha' 'un."

Chameleon's eyes darted to the doorway, where his brother stood, looking every bit nonchalant. That angered him more than it should have.

"You took the girl."

Letch looked at him, quirking his head to the side. "Wha'?"

"Ruby," Chameleon snapped. "You took her. The Test Village clan will not forget that."

"Just like you almost killed her an' her big ol' brother earlier?" Letch remarked.

Chameleon twitched. "I had not meant for them to be flung from the cliff."

Letch's eyes narrowed. "Then why did you throw th' girl?"

"It was an accident."

His brother scoffed. "Don't let Pop hear you say tha'. That was the happiest I've seen 'im since that red-haired girl was here."

Chameleon watched his brother's face; to his credit, the only evidence of his discomfort with the topic was the tightening of his fingers, despite the fact that he brought it up himself. "The last breeder?"

The word _breeder _caused Letch to stiffen, his resolve cracking somewhat, fire sparking in those normally mischievous eyes of his. "Yeah. The last one."

The elder brother decided to not push things any further than that. It never ended well, discussing such things with Letch, and really, Chameleon wasn't in the mood to deal with the rage that followed such conversation.

Letch, however, didn't seem to be too perturbed any more. Probably because his mind was far away. Chameleon didn't have to guess as to where. That was something that endlessly fascinated Chameleon about his brother - he could be completely jovial, or angry, and then come out with something surprisingly profound despite his crass nature.

Now, it was just stony silence.

"Don' get any stupid ideas," Letch finally said, his gaze harder than Chameleon ever remembered it.

Chameleon felt a sense of amusement. "And what would those ideas be?"

His brother looked at him as if he were particularly lacking in the intelligence department. "You got tha' look on your face...the one...the one you get when you thinkin' about doin' something stupid."

"I do not believe I ever do things stupidly," he replied, although he knew exactly what his brother was talking about.

He also knew that Letch was right.

His brother only gave him a look that Chameleon associated with pity. Which, really, was ironic considering that his brother was the one who needed the sentiment, all things considered. The eldest of the two gave his brother a contemplative look, as if weighing the words of what he was about to say - weighing it against Letch's loyalty to their father and Letch's loyalty to Chameleon himself.

Yet, he found himself saying the words regardless of what his thoughts were telling him.

"Have you ever wondered what it would be like, if things were different around here?"

Letch looked at him, the previous subject of conversation long forgotten, his eyes hard and yet somehow sympathetic at the same time.

"I can't allow m'self to wonder tha'," he said, his voice sharp, barbed, yet with a vulnerability that Chameleon never associated with him.

Before Chameleon could ask for further clarification - though, he knew perfectly well why Letch couldn't picture life any differently than what it was at the present - Letch turned abruptly, striding from the room almost with an almost violent stride, the warped wooden door shutting harshly behind him.

Silence surrounded him.

Silence, and the still-screaming, still-crying, voice of their newest captive.

No, not _their_. Chameleon could not have himself thinking that. His father was the one who held her here. If Chameleon had the gumption, he could free her. He could go in there and free her and then she would never have to deal with this wretched place again - except in the nightmares rendered by setting foot in the mines in the first place -

His eyes moved to the door just as another flesh-prickling scream pierced the air, this time coupled with the words, "_Please_! Please, _stop_! No, please, help me! _Someone_!"

Maybe those words were the catalyst the solidified his decision.

And, as the screams continued, Chameleon kept his eyes on that door while his mind formulated a plan.

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><p><em><strong>End Chapter Fourteen.<strong>_


End file.
